20 Things You Never Knew About Star Trek: Insurrection
15. Michael Piller Was Stuck In Development Hell Before Rick Berman Called Him
Michael Piller had joined the Star Trek franchise as The Next Generation had gone into its third season, though when the time came for a script for Star Trek: Generations, he turned it down. He recommended Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore to write the film instead. He had stepped back from Star Trek a bit by then, having been deeply involved in Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well.
In the years between Generations and Insurrection, he had written several projects that he thought were quite strong, though there was one glaring issue with them - none of them had actually been produced. It was what the industry referred to as development hell, or in other terms, everyone really liked the pieces, but not quite enough to greenlight them.
Rick Berman then called Piller, asking him if he would be interested in penning the script for the ninth Star Trek film. Piller accepted, and two years of a laborious process began.