Summary
- Star Trek 4 gets new screenwriter for “final chapter” of Kirk’s crew after 8-year hiatus.
- J.J. Abrams’ alternate timeline Enterprise team may reunite in long-awaited upcoming movie.
- Promising news for fans as Steve Yockey pens the new script, signaling potential return to big screen.
Star Trek 4 may finally take flight as a new screenwriter is penning what is billed as “the final chapter” of the Starship Enterprise crew led by Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk. The J.J. Abrams-produced and Justin Lin-directed Star Trek Beyond was the last Star Trek movie to hit theaters in the summer of 2016. Now 8 years later, this is the longest time there hasn’t been a Star Trek movie in theaters since Star Trek: The Motion Picture launched Gene Roddenberry’s 1960s TV series as a film franchise in 1979.
A new Variety cover story about the Star Trek franchise reports a promising update about Star Trek 4, as the next movie has a new screenwriter. This could mean J.J. Abrams’ alternate Kelvin Timeline USS Enterprise crew could finally reunite on the big screen. Read the Variety quote below:
The studio still intends to make what it’s dubbed the “final chapter” for the Pine-Quinto-Saldaña cast, and Steve Yockey (“The Flight Attendant”) is writing a new draft of the script.
Star Trek Beyond Ending & Why No Sequel 7 Years Later Explained
Star Trek Beyond set up a sequel for Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk and the Kelvin Timeline crew, but it’s 7 years later and we’re yet to see Star Trek 4.
Star Trek 4’s Development Hell Explained
Many filmmakers have taken a crack at Star Trek 4 and failed
Numerous filmmakers have attempted to develop Star Trek 4 but departed due to “creative differences”, including heavy hitters like Quentin Tarantino and Fargo’s Noah Hawley. Variety’s Star Trek cover story has a brief rundown of the development hell Star Trek 4 has faced:
First, a movie reuniting Pine’s Capt. Kirk with his late father — played in the 2009 “Star Trek” by Chris Hemsworth — fell apart in 2018. Around the same time, Quentin Tarantino publicly flirted with, then walked away from, directing a “Star Trek” movie with a 1930s gangster backdrop. Noah Hawley was well into preproduction on a “Star Trek” movie with a brand-new cast, until then-studio chief Emma Watts abruptly shelved it in 2020. And four months after Abrams announced at Paramount’s 2022 shareholders meeting that his 2009 cast would return for a movie directed by Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”), Shakman left the project to make “The Fantastic Four” for Marvel. (It probably didn’t help that none of the cast had been approached before Abrams made his announcement.)
Variety’s report also mentions an origin movie for the entire Star Trek timeline written by Seth Grahame-Smith and directed by Toby Haynes (Star Wars: Andor, Black Mirror‘s “USS Callister”), is preparing to start preproduction at the end of 2024. If that happens this new Star Trek origin movie would beat Star Trek 4 to theaters, but fans are eagerly awaiting the return of Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk and his Starship Enterprise.
Source: Variety
