Paramount decides it's time to send fourth Star Trek movie into orbit
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, series MVP Karl Urban, and the rest are back to going where—well, you know the deal
Paramount is sending many of its stars into space in the near future. No, not through a private space program but rather the magic of cinema. After announcing Beavis And Butt-Head Do The Universe, the studio finally gave the go-ahead to J.J. Abrams’ dormant Star Trek series.
Star Trek 4 will reunite Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Simon Pegg, and Karl Urban with the Starship Enterprise. The Star Trek Into Darkness director was on hand to give the announcement at Paramount’s Investors Day Presentation. And what a happy Paramount Investors Day it was.
“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 and help take Star Trek into areas that you’ve just never seen before,” Abrams said. “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 we can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper.”
Neither Abrams nor Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin will direct the new film. Instead, Star Trek 4, which hopefully won’t continue the Trek as a pun title scheme, will be led by Matt Shakman, a TV veteran coming off the success of WandaVision.
We last saw Pine in the cockpit in 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, a movie plagued by production issues, losing director original Roberto Orci in 2014 and replacing him with Fast And Furious maestro Justin Lin. The film was a modest hit but cost more than $185 million.
The franchise remained on pause as Chris Pine began running through time with Wonder Woman, and other Trek franchises started to pick up steam, including that Star Trek gangster project by Quentin Tarantino. Apparently, Abrams wasn’t going to sit around and watch Beavis and Butt-Head make it to space before his crew.