'Kill Bill' director Quentin Tarantino could direct the next 'Star Trek' movie

After last year's Star Trek Beyond, Paramount Pictures said it was planning to make a fourth movie in its reboot of the beloved series. But according to reports coming out of Hollywood, it's possible the film could be helmed by the last director Trekkies would expect.

Quentin Tarantino, the famed director of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, has pitched an idea for a new "Star Trek" film to Paramount's producer, director J.J. Abrams, according to reports in the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.

Abrams, who has taken over directing the yet-unnamed Star Wars: Episode IX, was reportedly so impressed by Tarantino's pitch that he's working on putting together a writer's room to work with Tarantino to develop a script around his idea, with the  goal of Tarantino in the director's chair on the next Star Trek movie, with Abrams producing.

At first, it may seem odd to consider Tarantino directing a Star Trek film. After all, the director and Academy Award-winning writer has always developed his own ideas and has never made a move that didn't garner an R rating. He's also never worked on a sci-fi film.

But Tarantino has worked on projects associated with existing franchises in the past, though that's been limited to television. He's twice directed episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and one episode of ER. And he's been vocal about his love of Star Trek and his desire to direct a movie featuring Kirk, Spock and the rest.

In September, Tarantino told TMZ that "it would be worth having a meeting" about directing the next Star Trek movie. During an 2015 interview on the Nerdist podcast, Tarantino spoke favorably about the cast of the new films, which includes Chris Pine as Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. He also made it clear he wasn't a fan of Star Trek: Into Darkness, which Abrams directed.

Tarantino grew up a fan of William Shatner's Kirk and has called Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever" his favorite episode of the original series. One episode that he continues to return to is a Season 3 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Yesterday's Enterprise," which focuses on time travel, alternate realities, and Klingons.

"I actually think that's one of the great space stories," Tarantino said in the podcast. "It actually could bear a two-hour treatment."

So far, no one is commenting on the record about the meeting, which isn't surprising considering any plans for Tarantino to direct a Star Trek movie are in the earliest stages at best.

Not only is Abrams tied up with the final installment of the new Star Wars trilogy, Tarantino is hard at work on his next movie, which will reportedly deal in some way with Charles Manson's murder spree in the late 1960s. So far, Margot Robbie has been asked to play Sharon Tate, with the film scheduled for an Aug. 9, 2019, release.