British screenwriters

In October, British screenwriters Chris Bryant and Allan Scott wrote a 20 page treatment entitled Planet of the Titans, which executives Barry Diller and Michael Eisner liked. Bryant believed he earned the screenwriting assignment because his view of Kirk resembled what Roddenberry modeled him on; "one of Horatio Nelson's captains in the South Pacific, six months away from home and three months away by communication". In the treatment, Kirk and his crew encounter beings they believe to be the mythical Titans and travel back millions of years in time, accidentally teaching early man to make fire. Planet of the Titans also explored the concept of the third eye.[6] Povill wrote up a list of possible directors, including Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Lucas, and Robert Wise, but all were busy at the time (or were not willing to work on the small script money budget.)[24] Philip Kaufman, having impressive science fiction credits, signed on to direct and was given a crash course in the series. Roddenberry screened ten episodes from the original series for Kaufman, including the most representative of the show and those he considered most popular: "The City on the Edge of Forever", "The Devil in the Dark", "Amok Time", "Journey to Babel", "Shore Leave", "The Trouble With Tribbles", "The Enemy Within", "The Corbomite Maneuver", "This Side of Paradise", and "A Piece of the Action". Early work was promising and by the fall of 1976 the project was building momentum. Fans organized a mail campaign that flooded the White House with 400,000 letters, influencing Gerald Ford to rechristen the Space Shuttle Constitution to Enterprise.[23] Bryan and Scott's proposal became the first accepted by the studio in October; Roddenberry immediately stopped work on other projects to refocus on Star Trek, and the screenwriters and Isenberg were swamped with grateful fan mail. The elation was short-lived; the first draft of the completed script was not finished until March 1, 1977, and pressure was mounting for Paramount to either begin production or cut its losses and cancel the project. Isenberg began scouting filming locations and hired designers and illustrators to complement the script.[25] Dissatisfied with having everyone take a turn at rewriting the script,[26] Bryant and Scott quit in April 1977. Kaufman reconceived the story with Spock as the captain of his own ship and featuring Toshirō Mifune as Spock's Klingon nemesis, but Katzenberg informed the director in May that the film was canceled.[6][27]


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