Once upon a time Hollywood only bought books and comics to be made into series, before moving on to other things that had built-in stories and characters. However, more recently, it seems that as long as it’s got a name people will recognise, Tinsel Town will make a movie about it.
That certainly seems to be why they’re planning a movie based around Hot Wheels cars. However, they seem to be pretty serious about it, as Star Trek Beyond and Fast & Furious helmer Justin Lin has just signed a deal to direct the movie.
It’s still early days though, as the film doesn’t have a writer and it’s not even expected to be Lin’s net movie. However, Mattel and Legendary Films thinks there’s enough brand recognise and love of vehicles moving fast, that it can build a successful family franchise around Hot Wheels – and of course sell a lot of extra toys too.
Before it even started filming, some had decided that the fact Fast & Furious helmer Justin Lin was directing Star Trek Beyond meant it was going to be a disaster. However, the early buzz is that they should have had a lot more faith, with many suggesting this it the best of the rebooted Star Trek bunch.
Back in 2014, there was a bit of a furore over the fact that, despite being held up since its 1968 inception as a beacon of progressive values on things like race, Star Trek had never had an on-screen openly LGBT character (although some had appeared in books). At the time, then director of the third rebooted Star Trek movie, Roberto Orci, said he was open to the idea of being more inclusive in the film, but after that we heard nothing.
The rebooted Star Trek has had plenty of success at the cinema, but one thing it’s been lacking is a five-year mission to seek out strange new worlds. However, now it seems it’s getting one, although as you would expect, as the crew of the USS Enterprise head off to strange new worlds, things don’t go smoothly.
The first trailer for Star Trek Beyond came in for quite a bit of criticism, not least for being very action-heavy and not Star Trek-y enough for some tastes. However, with the second trailer it seems Paramount feels the best approach is to double down on the action and suggestions of lots of epic special-effects. That said, they have added a few more character moments and suggestions this fits into a larger sci-fi universe.
Although the first two rebooted Star Trek movies were a lot of fun, one thing they lacked was boldly going to explore strange new worlds and new civilisations. However, with Star Trek Beyond it’s been suggest the Enterprise will finally be embarking on their five year mission.
We haven’t heard a huge amount about it for a while, but Paramount is still busily putting together Star Trek 3, and now it looks like it’s really moving forward as Idris Elba is in early talks to play the movie’s main villain, according to 
After four instalments, Justin Lin left the Fast & Furious franchise behind, and quickly filled his schedule with all sorts of possible films, none of which have panned out so far. However he’s still trying to get something into production and now he’s signed up for another possibility, Times Square, according to