Back in January, it was reported that Andor director Toby Haynes was developing a Star Trek origins movie for Paramount. Details were scarce but it was said to be a prequel film set decades before the events of J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot.
A new report in March added a little more detail, purporting that the prequel would "serve as an origin story of sorts for the main timeline of the entire franchise," with studio execs currently "focused on rightsizing the budgets to fit within the clear box office ceiling for 'Star Trek' feature films."
During the Paramount presentation at CinemaCon on Thursday, the studio made the project official.
Haynes is indeed directing and we also received confirmation that the script was being written by Seth Grahame-Smith (The Lego Batman Movie, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).
The film is scheduled to enter into production later this year for a release in 2025.
While unconfirmed, it's thought that the prequel film will chronicle how Starfleet and the United Federation became the dominant governing forces in the universe.
Paramount also made it clear that Star Trek 4, with Chris Pine’s James Kirk, Zachary Quito’s Spock, and Zoe Saldana's Uhura is still in development.
Fan reaction has been mixed to the news of the project as it seems that the origin movie will arrive before Star Trek 4, which is thought to be slated for a 2026 release, which coincides with the 60th anniversary of the franchise.
Trekkies have been waiting for almost a decade for Star Trek 4 to be released and while they're enjoying the onslaught of new Trek content on Paramount+, they're longing for the alternate Kelvin Timeline to be closed out.
Another popular theory is that the prequel/origin film could be a retelling of the events of First Contact, which sees the Borg, a cyborg extraterrestrial race that assimilates whole civilizations. They journey back in time to Earth's history, determined to prevent humanity's first warp flight, a watershed moment that marks humanity's entrée into the cosmic stage.
It was the crew of the Enterprise-D who went back in time to stop the Borg in that film but in the new timeline, both the Borg and Enterprise-D crew could be swapped out, while keeping the general plot the same.
Are you excited for the news of another Stark Trek feature film in development? Or are you more concerned about the status of Star Trek 4? Let us know in the comment section below.