What Happened to the 'Madame Web' Director's Star Trek Movie?

The Big Picture

• S.J. Clarkson was the first woman to be hired as a director for a Star Trek film, marking a shift in male-dominated industry norms.
• The fourth Kelvin timeline Star Trek movie, which Clarkson was set to direct, hit a major setback when lead actors Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth left the project over salary disputes.
• Despite efforts from various directors, including Clarkson, to launch new Star Trek movies, numerous obstacles have prevented the production from moving forward.

TV director veteran S.J. Clarkson makes her theatrical feature film directorial debut with Madame Web. This Sony/Columbia Pictures adaptation of a Marvel Comics character is far from the first time Clarkson has worked in the realm of genre material. This filmmaker previously brought Marvel characters to live-action by directing episodes of Jessica Jones and The Defenders. She also helmed episodes of shows like Dig and Bates Motel (among many others). Clarkson's experience with heightened pieces of storytelling, though, almost included venturing into the rarified field of Star Trek movie directors.

Long before Madame Web was ever on Clarkson's radar, this filmmaker was announced in April 2018 to be helming the fourth Star Trek title in the franchise's Kelvin timeline (concerning the young versions of Kirk, Spock, and others established in the 2009 Star Trek film). It was an especially interesting choice given that the Star Trek movies tended to make use of folks who were already well-versed in the franchise, as seen by five of the ten original pre-2009 Star Trek movies being led by actors (like William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Jonathan Frakes) who'd long taken part in this saga. Much like Fast & Furious veteran Justin Lin being hired for Star Trek Beyond, Clarkson was a bold outsider choice who could shake up the Star Trek universe. However, audiences never got to go to warp speed with Clarkson, as her Star Trek movie never made it in front of cameras.

Star Trek

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

S.J. Clarkson's Historical Importance and Original Production Timeline For 'Star Trek 4'

One thing that can't be avoided when discussing S.J. Clarkson's work on this unnamed Star Trek feature is her status as a woman. Taking on this blockbuster made her the first lady to helm an entry in the Star Trek franchise in its 40-year history. While women have written scripts for some of the most beloved episodes of the various Star Trek TV shows, no lady has ever been credited as either a director or screenwriter on any of the theatrical Star Trek features. Heck, producer Lindsey Weber's presence on Star Trek Beyond made her the first credited female producer on any Star Trek film! These titles had, like nearly all major American movies, long been dominated by men behind the scenes, but Clarkson's hiring suggested that norm was shifting a bit.

Clarkson's historic hiring came for a project that was already moving along steadily for nearly two years before she was hired. In July 2016 (just days before Star Trek Beyond hit theaters), it was announced that a fourth Kelvin timeline movie was being written that would bring back Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk from the 2009 Star Trek film. Screenwriters J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay (future showrunners of Amazon's Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) were writing the script for this production, which now seemed to be moving at a good pace for a release date that Paramount had yet to set.

Clarkson never publicly talked about her work or vision for this fourth Kelvin Star Trek movie. But in July 2018, Simon Pegg (the actor behind Scotty in this incarnation of the franchise) was all too happy to talk about the proposed motion picture. At the time, Pegg was stoked about how creative Clarkson was and her deep commitment to the world of Star Trek. At the same time, Danai Gurira (then fresh off her iconic work in Black Panther) was, per Deadline, being courted for a major new role in Clarkson's Star Trek movie, which would've kicked off shooting at the dawn of 2019, presumably for a 2020 premiere. Recruiting new cast members for this blockbuster should've been a positive sign of this project's imminent existence. Instead, it preceded a casting development that would sink Clarkson's movie.

Pine and Hemsworth's Departures Doomed Clarkson’s ‘Star Trek’ Voyage

In August 2018, just as Clarkson's Star Trek was getting going, Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth left the project over disputes regarding their salaries for the feature (Hemsworth would later claim qualms with the script led to his departure). It was a devastating blow that not only deprived this Star Trek title of its leading man but also its primary gimmick (the return of Kirk’s daddy!) to differentiate it from past installments. By January 2019, Clarkson had moved on to helm the pilot of a new Game of Thrones prequel show (which would never make it past the pilot stage). With this gig, Clarkson was out of the Star Trek game.

In a reflective interview with Esquire in October 2022, Payne and McKay recalled how their work on the script heavily involved deep collaborations with Clarkson, who was deeply interested in getting the feature's story just right before filming. The duo didn't divulge too many revelations about the story of this unmade movie but noted that Hemsworth's George Kirk would be a copy of the original character (rather than an evil doppelgänger from the Mirror Dimension or some other narrative device). They also revealed that the pair had taken cues from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade in fleshing out the dynamic between Kirk and his father. The proposed material for this follow-up sounds like it would make for an incredibly plausible summer blockbuster, but it was never meant to be, like so many other incarnations of this fourth Kelvin Star Trek movie.

Over the years, further directors like Noah Hawley and Matt Shakman have tried their hardest to launch new Star Trek movies, only to have those plans foiled by larger obstacles. As late as September 2023, Paramount Pictures was reportedly still hard at work trying to turn this follow-up into a finished movie. However, the bevy of struggles facing this motion picture make it all seem like a fool’s errand that can’t end well for anyone. In April 2018, helming a Star Trek sequel must've sounded like a natural next step for S.J. Clarkson after her work directing acclaimed episodes of Marvel/Netflix programming. Instead, this Madame Web director found herself on the front lines of a proposed sequel that seems as impossible to navigate as the Kobayashi Maru training exercise. This filmmaker would have to wait to make her theatrical film directorial debut on a project more focused on moms researching spiders in the Amazon right before they die.

Madame Web hits theaters everywhere on February 14th.

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