Transformers and Star Trek movies both heavily delayed by Paramount
Transformers prequel Rise Of The Beasts and Star Trek have both been moved back deep into 2023 on the Paramount schedule
Paramount has pushed back two of its biggest—if also most mysterious—tentpole features this week, shifting Transformers prequel Rise Of The Beasts and Matt Shakman’s largely hypothetical Star Trek movie back a year, and six months, respectively, on the studio’s schedule.
This is per Variety, which reports that Rise Of The Beasts has just made a big jump backwards, moving from June 24 of next year all the way back to June 9, 2023. The film stars In The Heights and Hamilton star Anthony Ramos and The Deuce’s Dominique Fishback. The film promises to “take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure and introduce the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the existing battle on earth between Autobots and Decepticons,” so congratulations to all the former Beast Wars kids bouncing around their rooms right now.
Star Trek, meanwhile, is just a huge question mark. Directed by WandaVision’s Shakman, the film—which would be the first Star Trek movie since Beyond came out in 2016—is a vastly unknown quantity, all the way down to it being unclear if Chris Pine and the other stars of the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies would be returning to film it. The one thing we do know is that it’ll now be debuting on December 22, 2023, having vacated its previous release spot on behalf of Transformers.
It’s not clear, as of yet, why Paramount has decided to kick the can like this. It’s not like the studio’s 2022 film schedule is necessarily bursting with life: Scream and Jackass are set to arrive early on, Sonic The Hedgehog and Top Gun in the spring, and a new Mission: Impossible movie in the fall. But Paramount appears to be simply giving up the summer blockbuster spot outright.
Not for uncontested territory, either: Variety notes that Transformers will be running directly into a scheduled-but-unnamed Marvel film, while Star Trek is now facing off on the same day with Patty Jenkins’ (also delayed) Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, creating the possibility of some sort of horrible nerd civil war sweeping the country come Christmas 2023.