I heard Andy Weir drop the line on a podcast and the room got smaller. You can almost feel an executive in Burbank reddening through the airwaves. I want to tell you what happened next and why it matters.
I’m going to walk you through the Zoom, the podcast, and a six-year history that explains why a successful Hollywood author and a major franchise didn’t click. Read this like a short mission report: clear, sharp, and with the parts that matter emphasized.
At a Zoom with Paramount showrunners, Weir says he pitched a Star Trek series
I can picture the grid of faces on a Zoom call: producers, showrunners, and Andy Weir. He says he spent time with Alex Kurtzman and the teams behind the modern shows, and that his pitch wasn’t taken.
He didn’t couch his disappointment. On the Critical Drinker podcast with Will Jordan he called several of the current shows “shit,” praised Strange New Worlds, and capped his story with an unapologetic “fuck ’em.”
That moment landed hard because it lays bare two mismatched instincts: a bestselling novelist who wants straightforward, entertaining space adventure, and a franchise-in-flux that treats conflict as a way to examine ideas. His anger was a spark; the meeting was the fuse, and the public reaction lit the room.
Did Andy Weir pitch a Star Trek show to Paramount?
Yes. Weir said he pitched a show and spent time on Zoom with current showrunners and executives, including Alex Kurtzman. Paramount didn’t accept his idea, and his public response shows he walked away sour.
On the “Critical Drinker” podcast, Weir framed Project Hail Mary as an antidote to current Trek
Listen: Will Jordan asks, and Weir answers bluntly about the modern franchise and what he thinks audiences want. He uses his movie, Project Hail Mary, as an example of sci-fi that prioritizes wonder and problem-solving over social adjudication.
Weir is explicit: he dislikes overt social commentary in fiction. He said he writes to entertain and resents when stories read like platforms. That stance explains why he prefers shows that feel like pure adventure and why he bristles at what he sees in some newer Star Trek.
That worldview is simple and elegant, like a well-tuned engine—precise, serviceable, and built to move. But modern Trek often treats conflict as a mirror. When you strip away the mirror, you remove the part of the franchise that has sustained arguments about its purpose for decades.
Why did Paramount reject Andy Weir’s pitch?
Paramount hasn’t released a detailed reason. Reading the room, two probable explanations surface: creative fit and franchise identity. Weir’s explicit rejection of social allegory likely clashed with the direction producers are exploring, and his blunt style may not align with episodic strategies set by Kurtzman and others.
At a 2018 press stop for Artemis, Weir made his stance on politics in SF clear
Back in 2018, during the launch of a new era of Star Trek with Discovery, Weir told interviewers he refuses to put political or social agendas into his stories. That’s a durable preference, not a one-off comment.
But franchise TV like Deep Space Nine or even the original “Balance of Terror” episode uses conflict to ask questions. Trope-driven battles in Star Trek are often allegories—Cold War anxieties, racial prejudice, ideological tests—so a pitch that casts the shows as mere shootouts misunderstands a bedrock of the IP.
That mismatch helps explain why executives at Paramount may have paused. They manage a catalog tied to serialized layers of commentary, streaming windows, and coordinated brand strategy. When an outside creator wants to remove those layers, the fit becomes risky.
What did Andy Weir say about modern Star Trek?
He said he likes Strange New Worlds, thought Enterprise was “kind of weird,” enjoyed Lower Decks, and dismissed the rest. He told listeners he wants stories that entertain without preaching—and that he was frustrated by what he sees as a perceived obligation within Star Trek to comment on social issues.
There’s a larger thread here about authorship, franchise stewardship, and audience expectation. Paramount has to balance legacy fans, streaming algorithms, and current cultural conversations. You, as someone who cares about both bright ideas and good scenes, are watching that tension play out in public.
Project Hail Mary is in theaters now, and it’s carrying Weir’s argument forward: optimistic science, cooperative human effort, and first contact told as a problem to solve. In franchise terms, he offered an alternate map and was told it didn’t match the one already on the wall.
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So where does that leave us: should a creator like Weir be folded into a franchise to reshape it, or should he keep writing his own patrols among the stars—leaving the franchise to chase its own moral questions—while fans watch both and choose sides?