Patrick Stewart’s Picard Being Recast For Future Star Trek Projects?
Patrick Stewart has been the face of Jean-Luc Picard for over thirty years, but a new rumor says the character might be recast for future projects.
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Ever since Jean-Luc Picard was introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, Patrick Stewart has been the face of the Starfleet captain. The character is so beloved and Stewart’s portrayal so iconic that Picard was even brought back for his own spinoff this year with Star Trek: Picard. It’s hard to imagine anyone else taking on the role of Picard, arguably one of the favorite characters in Star Trek history, yet a new rumor suggests that Picard could be recast in some upcoming Star Trek projects.
This rumor comes from gossip writer Daniel Richtman’s Patreon page, who says that a new actor is wanted for Picard in future Star Trek movies and for the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. From the sound of it, this doesn’t seem like a recasting of Picard, as Richtman doesn’t say anything about recasting Star Trek: Picard, but it this rumor is true, it could point to some interesting possibilities coming forward in the Star Trek universe.
The first interesting tidbit is the discussion of future Star Trek movies. Earlier this year, Paramount announced that they were putting a hold on future Star Trek movies in order to try and figure out where the franchise should go in a larger sense. There have been many Star Trek movie rumors for years now, but none of these films sound like they would include Jean-Luc Picard, as played by Patrick Stewart or any other actor. Although with time travel and multiple realities, certainly anything is possible within the world of Star Trek.
The initial rumored film was for Star Trek 4, which Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Chris Hemsworth had already signed on for, although it wasn’t clear if Pine and Hemsworth would still be involved with the project before it was shelved. Quentin Tarantino even announced interest in making what was called an R-rated Pulp Fiction in space. Tarantino has since said that even though his script might get made, he likely won’t direct a Star trek film. But neither of these sound like films where Picard or Patrick Stewart could fit in naturally.
Before Paramount shelved all future Star Trek films for the time being, Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley was developing a Star Trek film that he explicitly said wouldn’t include Picard. But with all three of these projects, it seems hard to see how Picard or Patrick Stewart could fit into them, leading to believe some other concept could be in the works.
Richtman also mentions the younger Spock could appear in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, yet unless time travel or some trickery was involved, it seems like this would be pretty hard to do, considering the timeline of events. The series, which is planned to start filming in February of 2021, already includes a different version of Spock than the ones we’ve seen in the past, this time played by Ethan Peck. It’s certainly possible a younger actor could portray a younger version of Patrick Stewart’s Picard, but again, that seems unlikely, unless the show does some time jumping.
But as we’ve seen in the Star Trek films in the past, there have often been multiple versions of the same character appearing together. Is Jean-Luc Picard being recast in any role that Patrick Stewart was likely to play? It sure doesn’t seem like it. Odds are, we might see a younger version of Picard, but at this point, even that seems to be a stretch.
