Last week CBS shook the world of Star Trek by announcing plans to expand the television franchise, all under the eye of Star Trek: Discovery, co-creator and executive producer Alex Kurtzman. One of the potential new TV projects in the works, at least according to The Hollywood Reporter, involved Sir Patrick Stewart returning to play Jean-Luc Picard. This possible TNG era project could be one of the potential “limited series” that Variety reported on last week.

Now a new report from the UK’s Mirror, is citing inside sources saying Sir Patrick is in talks, noting “The star is keen to reprise his most ­famous part – and deals are close to ­being struck.” The report, which should be considered a rumor at this point, quotes an “LA source” saying:

“Patrick is ­looking pretty good to get back on board the Enterprise. There are some aspects of the deal to be finalized, but there is a verbal commitment from all parties.”

Patrick Stewart last played Picard in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis, which was a box office disappointment and brought an end to the four-film TNG movie series. Since that time the actor has been vague about returning to Trek, including being rather dismissive of the notion when speaking to TrekMovie at a film festival last year. However, later reports of Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek project, did spark some interest from the 77 year-old actor.

Stewart hasn’t spoken publicly or on social media about Star Trek since last week’s revelation that CBS was expanding Trek on TV. However, the reports about his potential return to Trek add some possible context to his cryptic remarks in early June about having a good reason to watch the latest Star Trek TV series.

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Animated Picard too?

As noted in our report last week, one of the projects being considered, according to Variety, is a new animated Star Trek series. The new Mirror story also quotes their LA source saying “Patrick could easily lend his voice” to an animated show. Last week’s report had no indication that the potential animated series was even set in the TNG era, so take this bit from the Mirror with even more grains of salt.

According to the Mirror, some kind of announcement regarding Stewart’s return to Trek could be made in the next few weeks, for a show to be released in 2019. With San Diego Comic-Con coming in a month, any major announcements regarding CBS’ plans for an expanding their Star Trek television offerings could come then. As of now, CBS has yet to announce their plans for SDCC.

Keep up with all the possible upcoming Star Trek TV projects at TrekMovie.com.