The months tick by and the future of the Star Trek film series is no closer to being resolved. Since Beyond met with a lukewarm commercial reception in 2016, attempts to get a Star Trek 4 off the ground have gone nowhere. But that hasn’t affected the desire to get it made.
Leading man Chris Pine has given his firmest affirmation yet that he wants Star Trek 4 to happen, telling newly-launched podcast Things Are Going Great For Me that he hopes to get to work on it once Paramount are ready to do so.
I haven’t heard anything. I mean, I get asked these questions all the time. I’m like the last person to find anything out. So, I’ve heard, what have I heard? Tarantino is going to do one. And then, who is it? Noah Hawley was going to do something else, and then that fell through. And then he’s going to do something with the Discovery, the new Alex Kurtzman-led cast. So, I really don’t know. I know that Paramount is coming out of having restructured a bit and kind of a major corporate restructuring. So hopefully when all that dust settles, something concrete will come out of it and we’ll get to work. I’d love to do it.
Pine neatly summarizes the fugue the franchise has slipped into. At least three different Star Trek projects are known to have hit snags, including Quentin Tarantino’s aborted spinoff, and a Noah Hawley film that’s now officially on hold. It’s a mess that nobody wants to see prolonged any further. According to a recent report by Deadline though, crunch decisions are now being made on which outline will be used for the next Star Trek tentpole.
Of the options we know have been discussed, Hawley’s idea – which reportedly involves a deadly virus – has no future in a post-COVID-19 world, while Tarantino’s R-rated curio could only ever function as a spinoff. But one possibility that’s understood to still be on the table is actually the original Star Trek 4 outline.
This would see Chris Hemsworth return as Kirk’s father as part of a time travel plot. I think it sounds like a great idea, with a scope for the kind of emotional punch that too many Treks lack. But then again, I haven’t seen the full script – for all I know it may have been twaddle. Whatever Paramount choose to do, we’d all dearly welcome the clarity.