Now that the two Hollywood strikes over, Star Trek is getting back into production on two Paramount+ original projects. The third season of Strange New Worlds begins shooting this week, and the Section 31 streaming movie will begin production in late January.
Strange New Worlds season 3 shooting
The third season of Strange New Worlds began filming on Monday, December 11 in Toronto, just as we reported it would last month. The start of production was announced by members of the crew, including co-executive producer/writer Davy Perez, who shared a photo of his chair on the set with the message “Strange New Worlds Season 3 Day 1 of Shooting… Time to get back in the chair.”
Directing producer Chris Fisher posted an image of a console on the USS Enterprise set with the message ‘Day 1, Episode 301… shenanigans in space!”
Filming for the 10-episode season is scheduled for just over 5 months, and will wrap on May 21, 2024. Strange New Worlds is produced at CBS Stages Canada in Mississauga, Ontario just outside of Toronto. Production on season 3 was originally going to begin in May of this year, but was put on hold due to the WGA strike and then extended by the SAG-AFTRA strike. In an interview over the summer, Chris Fisher told TrekMovie he was set to direct the first episode and they’d been just one day away from flying in the actors before they shut down in May of this year.
The second season of Strange New Worlds was a hit for Paramount+. Just last week, the show picked up a series of Critics Choice Awards and Saturn Awards nominations. The full cast is set to return for season 3, which will also feature Scottish actor Martin Quinn as Scotty, who made his debut in the season 2 finale “Hegemony.” The showrunners have teased that more TOS characters are “inevitable,” although it’s unclear if we’ll see them in season 3. Even though the show will remain episodic, the Gorn are set to recur as villains. Co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman did confirm the series would continue to “genre hop” and attempt to once again do it “bigger and better” in season 3.
Section 31 filming set for January
The Star Trek: Section 31 movie starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh is also going into production. This was first teased last month, and now more details are available from industry sources. Filming is set to start on Monday, January 29th and take six weeks, wrapping up on March 13.
Originally the Section 31 movie was to be filmed in the fall, but it, too, was delayed due to the double strikes. Due to her Oscar win from earlier this year, Michelle Yeoh’s post-strike schedule could have complicated things; however, in October at NYCC, executive producer Alex Kurtzman confirmed Yoeh remains dedicated to the project. “What she did with all of the power she had accrued is to make sure that Section 31 was moving forward,” said Kurtzman.
A script (by Craig Sweeny) was completed before the WGA strike began in early May. Discovery producing director Olatunde Osunsanmi is set to helm the project for Paramount+. Section 31 will be shot a Pinewood Studios in Toronto using the stages formerly used by Star Trek: Discovery, sharing some crew and assets with Strange New Worlds, including the Pixomondo AR Wall stage in Toronto. But in his August interview with TrekMovie, Chris Fisher said he saw no issues with both Section 31 and Strange New Worlds filming concurrently, noting production on Strange New Worlds season 2 overlapped with season 4 of Discovery and it all worked out fine.
There are no confirmed details about the story or even the time period for the film. So far, Yeoh is the only confirmed member of the cast. She is returning to her Star Trek: Discovery role as Philippa Georgiou, the Terran Emperor turned operative for Section 31, Starfleet’s black ops intelligence division. After first appearing in season 1, the Mirror Universe Georgiou joined the USS Discovery crew when they jumped into the future in season 3. Yeoh’s Georgiou exited Discovery in the 32nd century using time travel via The Guardian of Forever in an arc that was designed to set up a Section 31 TV series for her. Later, Paramount+ pivoted the project into the Section 31 streaming movie, which was finally officially announced earlier this year.
Yeoh describes it as “Mission: Impossible meets Guardians of the Galaxy.” The Paramount+ announcement included this synopsis: In Star Trek: Section 31, Emperor Philippa Georgiou, joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past.
Hopefully, more details or cast announcements will be made as the Section 31 movie gets closer to production in January.
