News Kurtzman: Taking Over Discovery After Showrunner Departures

A new news article has been published at TrekToday:

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Alex Kurtzman spoke about signing his twenty-five million, five-year CBS deal, as well as...

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The most important bit of news here: Kurtzman says he's at "30,000 feet" for all of the non-Discovery Treks. This seems to imply he's not the showrunner for Picard!

I wonder if Chabon is going to be running the writer's room?

 

If he's willing to leave the Picard Project to Stewart, Beyer and Chabon (and whoever else I'm forgetting to name here), that's fine.

 

I think Kirsten is the one doing that

 

Wouldn't be surprised if it's Akiva Goldsman...

 

The showrunner will probably either Akiva Goldsman or James Duff or both. Though Kurtzman, being the new Rick Berman, will still oversea everything even from 30,000 feet.

 

I agree. Based on everything we know so far, the showrunner of the Picard series will be either Akiva Goldsman or James Duff (or both). James Duff also seems to be Kurtzman's right-hand man with Discovery. He was hired shortly after Kurtzman had to take over. We'll find out for sure regarding Discovery halfway through the season. If that turns out to be correct, it would be comparable to TNG with Michael Piller as showrunner and Jeri Taylor as his second in command.

 

Probably not going to be Duff, considering even though Kurtzman is the showrunner, he's handed over managing the writer's room on Discovery to Duff. I doubt he has managing 1 1/2 shows in him.

 

Except Rick Berman was never showrunner for any of the Trek productions he oversaw, so that Kurtzman has to play double duty is gonna make him a much busier man.

 

I thought Akiva Goldsman left entirely to go work on the DC Streaming service's 'TITANS' series ?

 

As I said, Kurtzman has already handed off running the writer's room on Discovery to James Duff, which seems to be about half of the job of a showrunner. The other half is more the coordination between the different departments (writers, set designers, vfx, etc) - more of a managerial role really. I think this plays more to Kurtzman's strengths.

 

If he starts saying, "We are very pleased." Worry.

 

No, he is on Picard series. There is a picture of Picard writers room with Patrick Stewart and he is there. He is also listed as a producer on Short Treks.

 

Berman gradually got more involved in that regard. He was kind of a partial show runner on Voyager. Then he became a full time co-show runner (with Braga) on ENT. He was a better producer than writer so this was not a good thing.

 

He did a lot of great work and if he had left on top he would have a great legacy. Berman made a lot of money for Trek but stuck around way past his creative prime. A few years ago he tried to write about his experiences with Star Trek but couldn't convince a publisher the fans would buy it. Hopefully Kurtzman is a little smarter about his career.

 

Speaking of Rick Berman, he is saying a lot of nice things about the writers on the Picard show:
https://twitter.com/berman_rick/status/1036731430896726016
https://twitter.com/berman_rick/status/1069399275719651328
https://twitter.com/berman_rick/status/1051255124801216512

 

Sounds like someone is fishing for a job.

 

He should enjoy retirement.

 

He certainly was more creatively involved with VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE, but he always left showrunning duties to Jeri Taylor, Brannon Braga, and Kenneth Biller as he kept focus on making sure production was moving.

 

Given the good relationship CBS and Warner Bros have there likely isn't a problem with him bouncing between the two networks/studios for different projects. The companies co-own a channel after all. The CW. I wouldn't be surprised if the second animated show that is likely not going to be limited to CBS AA gets released on Cartoon Network.