Brent Spiner, who played Lieutenant Commander Data in the Star Trek franchise, has revealed new details about what he and screenwriter John Logan have previously described as the "Justice League of Star Trek."
After collaborating on the story for 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, they plotted out a crossover event that brought together characters from all the different eras of Star Trek. When Nemesis proved a flop at the box office and fell flat with fans and critics alike, those plans were abandoned, and the franchise was later shelved.
Talking to TrekMovie for The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World, Spiner reflected on the failed movie and shared a few additional insights into what was planned.
"Thing is, it was a pipe dream on our parts, because obviously, nobody could afford to do that," the actor admitted. "Particularly not after my salary, they weren’t going to be able to. We had an original script that we wrote that was rejected. It wasn’t the script. We had a story idea that involved everybody playing two roles, but alas, that wasn’t to be."
It did get slightly beyond the idea stage, as Spiner confirmed that Paramount Pictures at least heard them out. "Yeah, we had meetings, and they said, 'Nah, we don’t want to do that.' And so, that’s the way it goes."
Previously, Spiner told Star Trek Magazine (via ScreenRant), "John [Logan] and I had a great story that would bring together all the captains, crews, and villains together at the same time. It was the Justice League of Star Trek, but Paramount decided it was too expensive a movie to make."
He's also said that it was set to "bring all the great Star Trek villains together, from Khan to Shinzon, and Picard is the only person who could stop them, and he actually has to go through time and pluck out the people he needs to help him. He goes back to the moment before Data blows up and takes him back to get Kirk and Spock, and go even further back and get Scott Bakula’s character Archer."
It's an ambitious idea, but also one that sounds a little like a Hail Mary for a property that, in the early 2000s, was struggling (not unlike how the Alien and Predator franchises were forced to come together for a "vs." crossover).
Eventually, Star Trek was brought back and rebooted by J.J. Abrams, who used time travel and alternate timelines to introduce younger versions of familiar faces and tell a new story with them. That eventually lost steam, while the past decade or so of TV shows on Paramount+ are also wrapping up to usher in a fresh wave of Star Trek movies, starting with John Francis Daley and Johnathan Goldstein's future-set tale.
Stay tuned for updates on the Star Trek franchise as we have them.