Project Hail Mary Author Andy Weir Did Not Hold Back About Star Trek's New Shows
It might not surprise you to learn that "Project Hail Mary" author Andy Weir is a "Star Trek" fan. After all, the story's lovable alien engineer Rocky is from the same solar system as Mr. Spock. In fact, Weir is such a big fan that he even had the opportunity to pitch his own "Star Trek" series to Paramount, and it was ... rejected.
On the same podcast where Weir revealed this factoid, he also said "I don't like a lot of the new 'Trek'" and even went so far to say "those shows are s**t." That said, this much-quoted portion of the podcast was largely steered by host Will "Critical Drinker" Jordan, who argued that Paramount should "kill all of the modern 'Star Trek' and decanonize all of it... Everything from 'Enterprise' onwards." Weir himself actually pushed back against this harsh take and spotlighted a few modern "Trek" shows that he thinks are keepers:
"You're a little more severe than I am ... I like 'Strange New Worlds,' I think it's pretty good ... I didn't hate 'Enterprise. I thought it was kind of weird ... 'Lower Decks' I thought was entertaining and fun. All the others, they can go."
"All the others" includes Paramount+'s first big revival series, "Star Trek: Discovery," as well as the "Next Generation" sequel series "Star Trek: Picard" and the most recent live-action series, "Starfleet Academy," which is set to end after just two seasons.
Project Hail Mary had one advantage Star Trek doesn't have
Although Andy Weir would clearly be happy to take on a "Star Trek" project, he also mused that there's a downside to tackling a huge, established franchise:
"For the major properties like 'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' you're always going to get studio interference. And one thing that I have to say on ['Project Hail Mary] ... Amazon is new to the [movie production] game, and ... I mean, they gave us notes on the cuts and stuff like that, but they weren't up in our faces pushing us around. And you know that's happening in the 'Star Wars' films and stuff like that.
"So, I think part of the reason why ['Project Hail Mary'] ended up being such a good movie [...] is because the studio just let the artistic people do their job. They let Phil Lord and Chris Miller be directors and have control. And they didn't come in and get in the way and say, 'No, change this, no, do that,' because it's not some 50-year-old legacy franchise that they want to do things with."
It's certainly true that there was a lot of pressure on "Star Trek: Discovery" to be a flagship show for Paramount+ amid the frenzy of the streaming wars. Some fans have argued that "Star Trek" has suffered from oversaturation, with five shows running concurrently at one point ("Discovery," "Picard," Lower Decks," "Strange New Worlds," and "Prodigy").
Perhaps Paramount came to the same conclusion, as the production frenzy has now wound down. The final seasons of "Strange New Worlds" and "Starfleet Academy" have already wrapped, and there are currently no other "Trek" projects currently in the works (that we know of). But perhaps we'll get to see Weir's take on "Trek" on day.