Paramount+ greenlights Star Trek film starring Michelle Yeoh
The recent Oscar winner will reprise her ‘Discovery’ character.
No matter how you feel about it, Star Trek: Picard is a bonafide hit so you know what that means: more Star Trek. Paramount+ is finally making the long-rumored Section 31 project, starring recent Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. However, this is not a TV show, as previously surmised, but a feature-length movie.
A Yeoh-led Star Trek: Section 31 has been in development since 2019, transitioning from a series to an “event film” with this latest announcement, according to Variety. Production starts later this year, led by writer Craig Sweeny and frequent Star Trek: Discovery director Olatunde Osunsanmi. Producers include Alex Kurtzman, who is behind every iteration of modern Trek, and Rod Roddenberry, son of franchise creator Gene Roddenberry.
In this film, Yeoh reprises the character of Emperor Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery, a sort-of evil, sort-of-lovable dictator from a parallel universe. (It’s a long story.) The official logline says that the movie starts when “Georgiou joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past.”
That brings us to the titular Section 31. The shadowy organization was introduced in the beloved 1990s series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as a foil for Starfleet, testing the boundaries of the idealism depicted in the future world of Star Trek. Since then, it has popped up in most modern Trek installments, including the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks and in movies like Star Trek: Into Darkness.
Star Trek: Section 31 joins multiple forthcoming Trek projects, such as that just-announced Starfleet Academy show and upcoming seasons of Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Star Trek: Picard finishes its three-season run this week and Star Trek: Discovery returns for a final season sometime next year. In other news, we only have 40 more years until we make first contact with the Vulcans, so there’s that to look forward to.