Chris Pine Says Star Trek 4 Is Cursed And That’s A Very Bad Sign
Chris Pine says the production of Star Trek 4 is cursed and shouldn't be trying to compete with Marvel.
Esquire recently did an in-depth profile on Chris Pine, and they talked about Star Trek 4, leading Pine to say he “feels like it’s cursed.” For all the Trekkies out there who appreciate the Kelvin timeline films, this is definitely a blow to morale. Pine expounded on his thoughts about the franchise saying “Why aren’t we just appealing to this really rabid fan group and making the movie for a good price and going on our merry way, instead of trying to compete with the Marvels of the world?”
Chris Pine certainly isn’t wrong about the status of Star Trek 4, as there has hardly been any forward momentum on the project or official good news for years. The project still doesn’t have a director, and the script has already gone through rewrites. When your unreleased film has an entire Wikipedia page dedicated purely to the ongoing development of your movie, it’s pretty safe to say it’s in development limbo.
Before February 2022, the last real news we even heard about Chris Pine in Star Trek 4 was in 2019 when he and Chris Hemsworth exited negotiations for the film. Then there was suddenly an announcement in 2022 that the film was definitely happening, and actors like Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, and John Cho were surprised by the news. At this point, Pine says he hasn’t even read a script.
So, while there’s a decent chance that Chris Pine will sign on to do Star Trek 4 if it ever happens, it definitely doesn’t seem like things are going well behind the scenes. The director situation is a fairly weird one, as multiple directors have been attached to the project and have dropped out at this point. With that many directors dropping out, you have to imagine there’s something that stinks about this movie.
The director issues began after S.J. Clarkson was hired to direct, but the project was put on hold with the aforementioned negotiations with Chris Pine in Star Trek 4 falling through in 2019. Eventually, Matt Shakman was hired to be the new director of the Beyond sequel, but he ended up dropping out in August due to scheduling conflicts. The search for a director continues.
It probably doesn’t help that they tried to create a new film franchise separate from the Chris Pine-led Star Trek 4 after Quentin Tarantino pitched an idea to J.J. Abrams for a film. Tarantino decided he didn’t want to direct this separate film, however, and Noah Hawley was attached to write and direct. This project was also indefinitely placed on hold so Paramount could regroup and figure out which way they wanted to take the Trek film franchise.
While we may not see Chris Pine in Star Trek 4 for a long time, we can at least see him in his upcoming film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which certainly has franchise potential of its own. Trek fans may not be getting any new movies anytime soon, but they can enjoy a variety of Trek series in the meantime. The final season of Star Trek: Picard is currently releasing new episodes, and Discovery, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds all have new seasons coming sometime this year on Paramount+.
