He went on: “In a strange way, it seems like this movie, Hollywood, would be my last. So, I’ve kind of taken the pressure off myself to make that last big voilà kind of statement. I mean to such a degree there was a moment when I was writing and went, ‘Should I do this now? Should I do something else? Is this the 10th one?’ No, no, don’t stop the planets from aligning, what are you, Galactus? If the Earth is saying do it, do it.”

It’s been two years since Tarantino’s involvement in the Star Trek franchise was first revealed, with Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith signing on to pen a script based on Tarantino’s idea just weeks after the project’s existence was revealed. During the press tour for Once Upon a Time this past summer, Tarantino spoke about Star Trek openly as though it was still something that had his interest.

With the filmmaker’s seeming retreat from the idea, it’s unclear what will happen to the project; as recently as last week, ViacomCBS CEO Bob Bakish was talking about two separate Star Trek movies in active development, beyond the multiple television projects in the works for CBS All Access. Presumably, one of those films was Tarantino's and the other was Star Trek 4, which is set to be written and directed by Noah Hawley.