Star Trek just got itself another Oscar winner and Starfleet Academy just got itself a new chancellor. Holly Hunter, best known for work in films including Raising Arizona, The Incredibles, and Home for the Holidays, has just been cast as the lead in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, a new Trek show coming to Paramount+.
Variety broke the news of Hunter’s casting. She’s playing “the captain and chancellor of the Academy, presiding over both the faculty and a new class of Starfleet cadets as they learn to navigate the galaxy in the 32nd century.”
“It feels like we’ve spent our entire lives watching Holly Hunter be a stone-cold genius,” co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau told the trade. “To have her extraordinary authenticity, fearlessness, sense of humor, and across the board brilliance leading the charge on Starfleet Academy is a gift to all of us, and to the enduring legacy of Star Trek.”
Filming begins this summer in Toronto where the biggest single Star Trek set ever will be constructed. It’s described as “a central academic atrium that will span two stories and include an amphitheater, classrooms, a mess hall, and a idyllic walkway lined with trees.”
News of the show broke early last year with a bare minimum of details. Now though, in addition to Hunter’s casting and the timeline, we have a bit of an idea of the tone. “These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Landau said. “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.” But they will have to take orders from one of the best in the business, Holly Hunter.
No word on when Star Trek: Starfleet Academy will debut but we’re likely to hear more at San Diego Comic-Con this summer.
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