Justin Lin and Simon Pegg nearly quit Star Trek: Beyond, but why?

Making a Star Trek movie doesn't seem like it'd be hard, but yet, it always ends up being harder than it really should be. We've heard issues surrounding the production of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and now rumors about the production of Star Trek: Beyond are popping up as well.

While the film came out in 2016, a new piece of information is coming out about the film that will soon be eight years old. The films' production was a mess and was substantially behind, even further so than anyone knew at the time. Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, hosted by Josh Horowitz, Justin Lin revealed just how much of a mess the production of Beyond actually was.

First Lin reveals how he got the job directing, revealing that the film had been believed in preproduction but was actually shut down when Lin, the future director of Beyond, got the call;

“I’m shooting ‘True Detective’ in Ventura, and it’s a Thursday. I get a call from J.J. Abrams, and he’s like, ‘Hey man, just curious, do you like “Star Trek? I’m like, ‘I grew up watching “Star Trek” with my dad, it has so much meaning.’ He said, ‘Would you happen to have an idea for a “Star Trek” movie?’ And I said, ‘Aren’t you in pre-production?’ And he said, ‘Nope, no, we’re shut down.’ He said, ‘If you have an idea, would you want to come by the office on Monday?’

Apparently, the process was far from good, with Lin revealing that the pressure and the chaos caused him to contemplate multiple times, especially with not having a script ready just months before shooting. It's here he and Simon Pegg, who helped pen the script for the film, seemingly quit several times, either for real or just out of frustration;

“Simon [Pegg] and I joke about it now, but It was intense, I had quit three times, and Simon had quit four times… also we didn’t know each other. For me, Simon Pegg, it was a dream to have the opportunity to work with him, but he comes from a very traditional process…but I’m sitting there in Vancouver and I have to start building sets. ‘Star Trek’ is not like ‘Fast and Furious,’ every idea you come up with is a build. And we had no time.”

Lin even goes on to say that the challenges between him, Pegg and co-writer Doug Jung was so messy that Lin didn't think the trio would make it out of the first week working together.

It just goes to show you that some of the best works are created under some of the worst conditions.