Quentin Tarantino is developing a Star Trek movie

And Paramount and JJ Abrams want to make it happen

(Getty)

In a move few would have predicted, Quentin Tarantino is to boldly go where he has never gone before and make a Star Trek movie.

Sources told Deadline that the Pulp Fiction director 'has come up with a great idea for a Star Trek movie at Paramount' and, after sharing this idea with JJ Abrams, the pair will put together a writers room who will listen to Tarantino's thoughts and sculpt a movie around them.

If things go to plan, Tarantino might even direct the thing, with Abrams producing.

A sci-fi/action movie like Star Trek would be firmly outside the wheelhouse for Tarantino, who is known for his violent, dialogue-heavy and usually completely original films.

He has never taken the reins on a franchise, though he did once direct an episode of ER and a couple of episodes of CSI.

Tarantino has also professed a desire to tackle a James Bond film, but getting the production company to get on board with his creative vision and insistence on final cut would probably prove tricky.

The auteur already has another film set at Paramount, a period piece centring on Los Angeles around the time of the Manson murders in the late 60s. He has asked Margot Robbie to play Sharon Tate and is kicking around names like Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as potential male leads.