Through the last few years, the only place to go and get some Star Trek entertainment has been on small screens, with the televisual side of the franchise expanding like a ruptured warp core. The film arm, meanwhile, has been stuck drifting lifelessly as Paramount explored different options. Now, though it appears to be back on track, with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg and the rest of the reboot timeline crew in talks to return.
JJ Abrams was part of Paramount's big investor day announcement, and confirmed that a fourth movie featuring Pine's Kirk, Quinto's Spock and the rest of their colleagues (Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban and John Cho) is fully in the works. What's not yet known is how the story will deal with the absence of Chekov, as played by the late Anton Yelchin, who died shortly before 2016's Star Trek Beyond premiered.
"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 can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper."
We'd already known that WandaVision director Matt Shakman was attached, though there has been some re-shuffling of the writing line-up, with Avatar 2's Josh Friedman and WandaVision's Cameron Squires taking over from Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Reportedly, Paramount executives commissioned focus group reports on fan interest in the Pine crew returning, and discovered that, yes, people still wanted to watch them.
We've been here before, of course, with rumours of a time-travel scenario that would have seen Pine's Kirk meet his dad, George, played so memorably (and briefly) by Chris Hemsworth in Abrams' 2009 movie. Actor pay deals scuppered that on like a gravitic mine, but there's always the chance they could have figured it out.
And this also likely means that other potential films in development, including those from Quentin Tarantino and Fargo's Noah Hawley are likely headed to dry dock permanently, though Abrams' mention of "a bunch of other stories" might mean their ideas could eventually go ahead in some expanded universe.
No release date was given for the new movie, but that late 2022 shooting start points to a potential late 2023 arrival. We might see this film series boldly going forward once more.