It’s been four years since Star Trek Beyond hit theaters and while it was a well-received movie (86% on Rotten Tomatoes), the third entry in the rebooted series earned $343 million worldwide, which didn’t exactly wow Paramount. Especially not when you consider it cost $185 million to make before marketing and promotion.
Since then, there’ve been numerous reports about possible sequels and reboots including a Quentin Tarantino R-rated film and a story that would bring back Chris Hemsworth, who played James T. Kirk’s father at the beginning of Star Trek. As for the cast, each of them have plenty of projects on the docket. Karl Urban and John Cho work consistently, Chris Pine can be seen in Wonder Woman 1984 later this year and Zoe Saldana is a part of not one but two giant Disney properties in the form of the MCU and Avatar.
And then there’s Simon Pegg, who co-wrote Star Trek Beyond. He’s gone on the record saying that the Trek films don’t make the same money as Marvel movies and perhaps the franchise is better suited for television, and he’s also not confident that a fourth outing will ever happen.
Zachary Quinto, meanwhile, is of mixed emotions on the subject. He believes there will always be interest in the property and even if he never gets to make another movie in the franchise, he’s content with what the team has already accomplished.
“It’s already thriving in the television format with Discovery and Picard and the spinoffs,” Quinto said. “I can’t even keep track of how many new Star Trek stories are being told since our last film in 2016. All I know is that we, all of us, had an incredible experience making those films. If there is an appetite for more of those stories with us in them, I’m sure that we would all be thrilled to come back and do one more or whatever, but I’m not really attached to it anymore.”
“I stepped away from any expectation or any real certainty that it’s ever going to happen again,” he continued. “I think that’s the only real way to move through the world, right? If it happens, that’d be great, but I’m not going to sit around waiting for it to happen. I have a ton of other stuff in my life, in my career. I have lifelong friendships from those films and working relationships and a lot of respect and fond memories, so if that’s what it ends up being and I can look back on my life and say that’s what it was, then that’s incredible, and if we get to do more, that’s also incredible. But as far as the stories go, they’ve been around for decades and generations, and I think that that will continue, whether or not we continue on with them.”
Star Trek will always be a part of the lexicon whether it’s in film or television. We’ve now had three different iterations of movies, with J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot presenting a fresh take on the series aimed at attracting more mainstream audiences. And it worked for a little while. But like all franchises, interest began to wane.
Will we ever see Star Trek 4? The odds go down with each passing year, but if not, at least we still got a pretty good trilogy out of it.