As fans hope and pray and petition the powers-that-be to greenlight a Star Trek: Picard sequel series — tentatively titled Star Trek: Legacy — there’s a new glimmer of hope in the Final Frontier. Patrick Stewart claims to be looking at a script for a Star Trek movie that would once again focus on Jean-Luc Picard.
For Trek fans frustrated by the lack of Legacy updates, and who want Picard-centric characters like Laris, Raffi, Soji, and Elnor to see more screentime, the idea of a Picard movie should be Jerry Goldsmith-esque music to our ears. But there’s one big problem here: there’s no concrete reason to believe a Picard movie is happening. And even if it did, is that actually what fans want?
The Picard movie explained
In short, there is no confirmed Picard movie. The idea that there could be a feature film sequel focused on Jean-Luc and the Next Gen gang mostly comes from the fact Patrick Stewart has been saying he would like to do another film. In fact, he and the TNG cast have been saying this since October 2022, well before Picard Season 3 was even out. When Stewart’s memoir, Making It So, was published last fall, he reiterated his desire to have “one more shot” at a TNG movie. None of these desires will make the movie materialize into existence.
So why are headlines once again saying there’s a Picard movie in the works? It’s mostly because Patrick Stewart has again said there is.
In a November 2023 interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Stewart told Josh Horowitz:
“I heard only last night about a script that is being written, but written specifically with [Patrick Stewart], to play in it. And I’ve been told to expect to receive it within a week or so. I’m so excited because it sounds like the kind of project where the experimentation that I want to do will be essential for this kind of material...”
The interview was published on January 4, 2024, so the information is “new.” But how real is it?
Will a Picard movie really happen?
As of this writing, exactly zero other sources have confirmed the existence of a Picard feature film script. TrekMovie has speculated that such a project might be a direct-to-streaming movie, similar to the Michelle Yeoh Section 31 project filming this year. That would make some sense, given Stewart’s contemporary focus on the TV side of the Trek franchise.
The Trek movie rights owned by Paramount Pictures aren’t handled by the same producers as TV Trek. The last anyone has publically heard, J.J. Abrams, Skydance, and Bad Robot were still trying to get a new Trek feature off the ground. All the new Trek shows, including Picard, come from CBS Studios. If someone was writing a script for Patrick Stewart, that would mean he’s suddenly working with an entirely different set of creatives.
It’s possible some new collaboration between all the corners of Star Trek has made this feature possible, but for now, all we have is Patrick Stewart’s statement. Is Stewart powerful enough to will a Picard movie into existence? Possibly! But we’d need more than his word as proof.
What does all this have to do with Star Trek: Legacy?
In short, the hypothetical Picard movie seems to have nothing to do with the much-discussed spinoff series, Legacy. Time and again, Picard Season 3 showrunner Terry Matalas has said his vision for Legacy would focus on Jack Crusher, Captain Seven, Raffi, the La Forge sisters, and the continuing mission of the new starship Enterprise-G. That means Jean-Luc Picard himself would not be the focus of Legacy. Even the post-credits scene of Picard Season 3 made it clear Q was interested in Jean-Luc’s son, Jack, not Jean-Luc himself.
Right now, it’s unlikely fans will hear word of either Legacy or a new movie in 2024. While anything is possible, Star Trek’s parent company, Paramount Global, is currently in talks to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery. That would be a major shakeup for Trek, and it’s unlikely we’d hear any word of future Trek projects until the situation was resolved. So even if a Picard movie does make it so, we should probably be setting a course for 2025 at the earliest.
Star Trek: Picard streams on Paramount+.
Phasers on Stun!: How the Making — and Remaking — of Star Trek Changed the World
