It’s been a weird journey around space. However, it seems a fourth Star Trek movie with the rebooted cast is back on track.
During Paramount’s big investor day announcements (via Empire), JJ Abrams appeared to confirm the gang is coming back together for a fourth adventure. Which will see Chris Pine’s Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, and the other USS Enterprise colleagues (Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg) are returning.
However, what hasn’t been confirmed is what the story will be and how they’ll handle the absence of Chekov, played by Anton Yelchin, who sadly died before 2016’s Star Trek Beyond premiere.
It could be as simple as recasting, which is the better choice, or casting a new character to replace Chekov.
Speaking at the investor day, Abrams said, “We are thrilled to say 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 and help take Star Trek into areas that you’ve just never seen before.
“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,” added Abrams.
As stated above, getting the right story to get Trekkies excited for the big screen has been a journey. Initially, this sequel was going to be helmed by SJ Clarkson, becoming the first female director of a Star Trek film, back in April 2018 before that project was cancelled in January 2019.
Followed by Fargo creator Noah Hawley and legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino had their own projects, but given this announcement, both cancelled and probably have been for months and years.
As for this project, the studio has brought in WandaVision director Matt Shakman while his Marvel series screenwriter Cameron Squires and Avatar 2’s Josh Friedman have taken over writing duties from Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.
We still don’t know what this story will be, but past rumours the story would involve Pine’s Kirk meeting his dad George, played briefly by Chris Hemsworth in Abrams’ 2009 movie, yet pay deals scrapped those ideas, but you never know they’ve been resolved.
No release date has been set, but with the late 2022 shoot, we could see it in cinemas in late 2023, but we’ll likely be boldly going forward in summer 2024.
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