James McAvoy Reveals His Young Picard Series Pitch

James McAvoy has spent years playing a younger version of one Patrick Stewart character, and he once tried to do it again. The actor says he pitched a Star Trek limited series built around a young Jean-Luc Picard, with the working title Mutiny on the Stargazer.

A Picard origin story that nearly happened

McAvoy discussed the idea on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, saying he took a complete story to the people behind the franchise and that the proposal came close to moving forward. His playful explanation was that his real career ambition is to keep portraying younger versions of Stewart.

The joke has a clear history. McAvoy succeeded Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies, beginning with 2011’s X-Men: First Class. A young Picard project would have created a second bridge between the actors while exploring the Starfleet captain before the era seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The title points to Picard’s early command career aboard the Stargazer, a period often referenced in franchise lore but never given its own live-action series. McAvoy did not say when he made the pitch or identify the executives involved, and there is no indication that Paramount currently plans to revive it. For now, the idea remains an intriguing near-miss rather than an announced production.

One role still delivers steady residuals

The same podcast conversation also produced a candid detail about the economics of McAvoy’s film career. Despite a résumé that includes Atonement, Speak No Evil and multiple X-Men installments, he said M. Night Shyamalan’s 2016 thriller Split is the only movie that still pays him residuals consistently.

McAvoy played Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man with multiple identities, in the film and returned for the 2019 crossover sequel Glass. He contrasted the regular Split payments with occasional residual checks that can be extremely small.

Together, the two disclosures show different sides of a long studio career: one ambitious franchise idea that never reached the screen, and one relatively lean thriller that continues to generate income years after release. The Picard pitch may be dormant, but McAvoy’s enthusiasm for the character—and his affection for Stewart’s legacy—clearly is not.