After putting in his tenure in the X-Men franchise, James McAvoy had his sights set on another iconic character originated by Patrick Stewart.
The Golden Globe nominee recently revealed that he pitched a Star Trek series about “young Picard” that was titled Mutiny On the Stargazer, noting that he nearly “made” the limited series.
“That was a whole idea I had I pitched to the Star Trek people as well, and we nearly did it,” said McAvoy on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I’ve got a whole story about an early Picard. All I really want to do in my career is play young versions of Patrick [Stewart].”
The interview came after McAvoy took over the role of Professor Charles Xavier from Stewart in the X-Men prequel movies First Class (2011), Days of Future Past (2014), Apocalypse (2016) and Dark Phoenix (2019). Stewart originated the live-action role in X-Men (2000), reprising him in the sequels X2 (2003), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), The Wolverine (2013), Logan (2017) and Days of Future Past, and again in the upcoming MCU title Avengers: Doomsday, premiering Dec. 18 in theaters.
McAvoy continued, “I had this whole story of a young Picard that I love. I pitched, it was like a one-off standalone season … when he took over as captain of the Stargazer and what actually happened, and the secret he’s been holding his entire career. I just pitched it to them, talking to them, and they were into it, but we had logistical issues that meant we couldn’t do it. But I love that story that I just got to bed and think about it at night.”
Running for seven seasons in syndication from 1987 to 1994, Stewart starred in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, commanding officer on the USS Enterprise-D. He reprised the role in Star Trek: Picard, running for three seasons from 2020 to ’23.
Picard’s first command was explored in author Michael Jan Friedman’s six-part Star Trek: Stargazer book series, which was published between 2002 and 2004.