Way back in 2016 during Star Trek Beyond’s red carpet premiere in London, JJ Abrams confirmed there’d be a follow up to the Kelvin Timeline’s Enterprise crew with expectations on Beyond being quite high. Despite it being one of the few earners that year for Paramount, it didn’t quite meet financial expectations for it’s budget.
The show wasn’t over though ans plans still went ahead for a fourth instalment that would see Chris Pine’s Kirk meet his father, portrayed in the opening of the 2009 movie by Chris Hemsworth, but the timey wimey feature was put on the shelf when negotiations broke down for both actors as Hemsworth later suggested he wasn’t digging the script.
Since then there’s been a flurry of varying ideas thrown into the mix with SJ Parker signed on for a time, Noah Hawley proposing a completely fresh start for the movies that was later shelved and more including master of foul mouthed violence Quentin Tarantino submitting a pitch related to a classic original series episode with Chris Pine leading the crew in a 1930’s inspired gangster movie.
More news came last year including the hiring of Kalinda Vasquez to write a new screenplay for her own idea, while Paramound announced a release date but no information for a 2023 movie. But now following a bit of a reshuffle at Paramount’s film division, as well as overall branding changes since re-merging with ViacomCBS, it looks like Paramount’s gone back to the JJ Abrams led crew to revive the next big screen adventure.
“We are thrilled to say that we are hard at work on a new ‘Star Trek’ film that will be shooting by the end of the year that will be featuring our original cast and some new characters that I think are going to be really fun and exciting,” Abrams announced at Paramount’s Investors Day Presentation last month, before hinting at more beyond a fourth film, “We’re thrilled about this film, we have a bunch of other stories that we’re talking about that we think will be really exciting, so can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper.”
Getting the band back together won’t be an easy task. Chris Pine has been working on absolutely everything he can get his hands on from continuing his role as Steve Trevor in the DC Universe to taking the role of iconic American broadcaster Walter Conkite in upcoming movie Newsflash. And thats when he’s not being a rogue Scottish King or short lived Peter Parker.
He’s not the only one with a full slate as Zachary Quinto is starring in both the broadway and movie adaption of The Boys In The Band; Simon Pegg continues as Benji in the Mission Impossible franchise; Karl Urban continues to work on The Boys which has been announced for a fourth season ahead of the third while John Cho’s coming off the live adaption of Cowboy Bepop and Zoe Saldana see’s herself attached to multiple projects including several Avatar sequels and the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
There’ll also be a dark cloud over the cast due to the loss of Anton Yelchin who tragically died at only 27 before Beyond’s release in 2016.
While Abrams remains keen and is reportedly planning on filming by the end of 2022, nothing is yet etched in stone and there’s a chance it could all go sideways. But as reported by Variety, it seems public opinion favours the 2009 cast on the big screen so here’s hoping they get at least one final adventure together. Until then, Variety has also given us a look at what might have been offering details of Tarantino’s pitch. You can read the report on Variety.com.
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