Summary
- Paramount is expanding the Star Trek universe with a new movie directed by Toby Haynes and written by Seth Grahame-Smith.
- The new movie will be an origin story set decades before the original 2009 Star Trek film, with exact plot details still under wraps.
- Although Star Trek 4 is still in development, the franchise has faced obstacles that have delayed the sequel, and it’s unclear if Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk will return.
Although fans of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek movies are still awaiting the fourth installment in the franchise, it looks like Paramount are expanding the Star Trek universe in a different direction with a new movie. According to Deadline, Toby Haynes, known for his work on the Star Wars series Andor, has been tapped to direct the latest addition to the 60-year-old sci-fi property, which will be written by Seth Grahame-Smith and produced by Abrams’ Bad Robot.
Although it is believed that Star Trek 4 is still in “active development” and will continue the Chris Pine-led story at some point in the future, the new movie will be an origin story that takes place “decades before the original 2009 Star Trek film.” Currently, exact plot details are being kept under wraps, and it is far too early for casting news to be a consideration. Based on the very early development of the project, fans will likely have a few years to wait before this new Star Trek offering hits the big screen.
The Star Trek franchise has never been short on content, with several series having been produced by Paramount in the last decade. However, like the Star Wars franchise, theatrical releases have been a little more sparse, with the last movie being 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. Although that movie didn’t fare well with critics, the film did achieve a healthy $343 million at the box office, but the road to a sequel has been full of obstacles that have conspired to stall the franchise.
Star Trek 4 Has Received Disappointing Updates from Its Stars
Despite seeming to be on the cards for some time, a sequel to Star Trek Beyond has been elusive to say the least. Originally set to be written by Lindsay Anderson Beer, the Pet Sematary: Bloodlines director revealed back in September that she was no longer part of the movie’s writing team. She told ComicBook.com:
“I wrote a couple drafts of that before I had to leave for Pet Sematary. And it was originally, the seed of the idea came from J.J. himself, who’s such a creatively generous person, and it was amazing collaborating with him. And it was very sad to leave our Zoom sessions to focus on [Pet Sematary: Bloodlines], but this was my baby, so I had to prioritize.
A subsequent update on the status of the movie by star Chris Pine only seemed to compound the belief that the movie remains in limbo. While promoting the Disney movie Wish, Pine was asked if there were any updates on the sequel, to which he simply replied:
While it seems that Paramount are still interested in bringing Star Trek 4 to screens, a decade-long gap between movies is usually not a good thing. Although there are some that have bucked that trend and proven that a break is sometimes good for a franchise, with so many other Star Trek projects on the cards, it could turn out that Pine’s version of Captain Kirk may have already boldly gone for the last time.
