From time to time, a film project under discussion seems so right that you can almost touch it, even if it has about the same chance of being shown in multiplexes as Vladimir Putin has to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Reports this week suggest that Cate Blanchett, a highly paid elder of serious cinema, was recently cast in the lead role in Star Trek for Noah Hawley, director of Fargo (television edition) and Legion.
Regular readers of this blog post know that Paramount has decided to take a different path with the next installment in the ongoing Starship Enterprise adventure. They bring back Captain Kirk Chris Pine and Spock Zachary Quinto along with their rebooted comrades from the JJ Abrams-led trilogy, but Wandavision director Matt Shakman will instead be the man in the command chair.
That means we’ll start leaking about how Hawley’s version could have failed, and one of those nuggets is Blanchett’s involvement. Exactly what role she would play is not known to the general public, but the idea of the Australian actress as the captain of her starship battling odd-looking aliens and detecting anomalies in deepest space is so compelling that it’s probably already happening right now. now in a much cooler alternate reality than the miserable one we live in.
Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Photo: Lucasfilm/AllstarWhy Blanchett has appeared in only a handful of major genre projects in her entire career — her Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and the son of Odin’s nefarious sister Hela in Thor: Ragnarok come to mind — mystery. Few other actors can chew the scenery with as much lustful fury and mischievous fun as the awards season favorite. However, so often it seems that she is limited to those films that only critics see.
Perhaps Blanchett’s infuriating absence from the genre is due to the fact that sometimes she clearly chose the wrong projects. Spalko may be Steven Spielberg’s favorite indie villain, but The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull itself was a rather clumsy attempt to jump the shark from dashing archeological fantasy to bombastic sci-fi. Which brings us to Blanchett’s latest foray into mainstream cinema, the upcoming Borderlands video game adaptation.
What? I hear you ask. Yes, Blanchett is set to take on the lead role in 2009’s widescreen “open world first-person shooter” as Lilith, described as a notorious criminal with a mysterious past who reluctantly returns to her home planet Pandora (no). , not the one) to find the missing daughter of a powerful tyrant. The film is being directed by Eli Roth, the author of Hostel and this terrible remake of Death Wish. It all sounds as tempting as a delicious plate of Klingon eider.
Can’t we just bring Hela back into the Marvel game? The deity of Asgard may have died at the end of Ragnarok at the hands of the fiery demon Surtur, but how exactly to kill the Goddess of Death? I mean, there should be workarounds for the screenwriter here to help get her back into action. After all, DC has brought back Superman with a box of junk and sticky plastic!
Cate Blanchett with Elijah Wood in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001. Photo: New Line Cinema/AllstarIf that doesn’t happen, maybe Paramount will find a way to show Blanchett in Star Trek 4 after all. It doesn’t have to be a huge role: she could be shown as Scotty’s more elegant, graceful sister, or as the leader of a race of all-female aliens about to reach civilizational nirvana when Kirk accidentally drops a thousand tons of tribbles in his capital city. We’ll take something for now. Just please don’t waste a two-time Oscar winner on a bad Eli Roth video game movie.
But hey, we’re talking about Star Trek. Perhaps we can just pull out the old “red stuff” and create an “alternative timeline” where this article would never have to be written because Hollywood studios make better creative decisions. And if not, then maybe it’s time to rake the whole accursed place to fiery oblivion.