Paramount Pictures has made a slew of announcements through its recent meeting with investors, and one of them is the fact that a fourth Star Trek movie will go into production at the end of the year for release in 2023.
J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions is guiding the project, and negotiations have begun with cast members Chris Pine (Captain James. T. Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Mr. Spock), Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy), Zoe Saldana (Lt. Uhura), John Cho (Sulu) and Simon Pegg (Scotty). No word on whether or not the late Anton Yelchin will see his role of Chekov recast.
Said Abrams, "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. 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."
Directing will be Matt Shakman, who was the directorial guiding force on the Disney+ series WandaVision. The screenplay is written by Josh Friedman (Avatar 2) and Cameron Squires (WandaVision), which is based on an earlier version by Lindsey Beer (Sierra Burgess is a Loser) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel).
A previous take on Star Trek 4 would have reportedly reunited, through time travel, James Kirk with his father, George (Chris Hemsworth, best known these days as a certain God of Thunder in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), who died during the opening sequence of Abrams' 2009 Star Trek, but negotiations with the actors went south.
Films through the entire history of the franchise are as follows:
Star Trek: The Original Series: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).
The Kelvin Timeline: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek: Beyond (2016).
Between the various shows on Paramount+ and now this film (with the promise of more, according to Abrams' statement), it's a good time to be a Star Trek fan.