“Project Hail Mary” is the latest audience-pleasing NASA survival film based on the work of author Andy Weir (also saw his book “The Martian” adapted by Ridley Scott and Drew Goddard), but the writer has revealed his feelings towards the “Star Trek” small-screen iterations after mentioning in an interview that Alex Kurtzman and Paramount seemingly rejected one of his pitches.
Weir expressed his frustrations with the landscape of sci-fi while speaking on the right-wing YouTube channel The Critical Drinker (via THR), where he did a rundown of the recent “Star Trek” shows he likes and dislikes while detailing how he nearly got involved with the franchise only to be turned down by Kurtzman.
“Okay, you’re a little more severe than I am,” Weir said of the YouTuber’s ire for modern “Trek” compared to his own. “I’ll give you my opinion, and I’m just a consumer. I like ‘Strange New Worlds.’ I think it’s pretty good. I didn’t hate ‘Enterprise.’ I thought it was kind of weird. ‘Lower Decks,’ I thought, was entertaining and fun. All the others, they can go. And here’s another thing: I pitched a ‘Star Trek’ show to Paramount, and I was in Zoom with the showrunners with all the shows and spent a lot of time talking to [executive producer Alex Kurtzman]. I don’t like a lot of the new Trek. He, as a person, is a really nice guy. But at the same time, those shows are s***. He is a nice guy. But they didn’t accept my pitch, so, you know, f*** ’em.”
Weir added a little more context to his own reasoning by detailing how much influence the original “Star Trek” had on the sci-fi genre: “I’m Gen X, so my sci-fi was like original series ‘Star Trek’ reruns and ‘Lost in Space‘ reruns. And there wasn’t really much in the way of [new] sci-fi that was airing, where people are off in space doing cool things, until we got to [‘Star Trek: The Next Generation‘].”
UPDATE #1: Hours ago, Weir has posted an apology of sorts directly to Kurtzman on his Facebook page. One excerpt from the post states, “I feel like my quotes were taken out of context as salacious sound bytes. I hope you saw the other parts where I said how much I like you as a person and what a nice guy you are.”
UPDATE #2: Fellow author Don Winslow, who recently saw his book “Crime 101” turned into a feature film, took to social media to call out Weir’s odd ambush of fellow writers on those “Trek” shows, specifically, Kurtzman.
Their newest outing, “Starfleet Academy,” was recently given the axe by Paramount+ (ending after Season 2), and it’s the first time in ages that multiple “Star Trek” shows weren’t in production. Potentially, because of new oversight by David Ellison after the company became Paramount Skydance, as they’re attempting a new “Star Trek” film after previous failed iterations, with an expectation that they’ll pursue new casting.
Given the platform he was speaking on, we’re not exactly shocked that Weir felt comfortable sharing negative opinions or leaning on “Star Trek” specifically. The Critical Drinker is known to be one of these culture-war YouTubers, who are often performatively enraged/obsessed by diversity in entertainment and use rage-bait to court engagement to their videos. Unsurprisingly, the channel celebrated “Starfleet Academy” being cancelled by Paramount (a little more than callous, given all the cast, crew, and creatives losing work).
You can watch that full exchange with Weir below.
.@andyweirauthor Congrats on the success of Project Hail Mary+The Martian. I'm a real fan.
— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) March 30, 2026
But when you have your moment don't use it to crap on other writers work. For the record, @Alex_Kurtzman is a visionary writer+creator+producer&you owe him an apology…writer to writer.
- Christopher Marc
- Christopher Marc
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- Christopher Marc
