Exclusive: Star Trek 4 Is Back On, New Director Being Hired
Star Trek 4 is back in the works and there is a lot we found out about it.
This article is more than 2 years old
Star Trek 4 was dead and buried. It seemed like Paramount had decided to abandon the feature film arm of the franchise and focus solely on their television projects like Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Although there was a lot of news about a number of different possible fourth films, the development process looked like it had stalled out and we would not be seeing the crew of the USS Enterprise on the big screen again. And while that facet looks to remain true, we have obtained some exclusive info that says we have not seen the last voyage of Chris Pine’s Captain James T. Kirk and his faithful crew.
According to our trusted inside source – the same one that gave us our confirmed exclusive scoops regarding Don Cheadle appearing as War Machine in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Josh Brolin returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thanos – Star Trek 4 is back in the works with Chris Pine and the rest of the Kelvinverse crew. Paramount is looking for a new director to helm the project. Our source says that they will still be going with the story idea that sees Kirk reunited with his father, played by Chris Hemsworth, so some kind of time travel shenanigans would be involved. Our source also says that Paramount would not be planning to make Star Trek 4 a theatrical release. Instead, it will be a Paramount+ exclusive in an effort to get more consumers interested in the streaming service.
But, that is not all that we are being told. In addition to getting Chris Hemsworth for Star Trek 4, our source says that Paramount is trying to get William Shatner to appear in the movie in some capacity. If that’s the case, it sounds like the movie is going to try and connect to the original timeline of the series once again. Would we see a digitally de-aged William Shatner as his version of Captain Kirk? We have to imagine that would be an enticing offer for the actor. Getting to step back into the shoes of his younger self seems like the kind of opportunity Shatner would actually be interested in.
However, it is not all good news for Star Trek 4. Our source has also informed us that Paramount wants this entry to be the darkest entry in the series yet and that sounds a bit distressing. We have had our fill of dark Star Trek after one too many particular projects. Thankfully, the info we have received also says that there are other Star Trek movies in development for Paramount+. Hopefully, that means we could see other movies that aren’t quite as dour. Could we possibly see a Star Trek: Lower Decks feature film? You know we’d like that.
It is refreshing to hear that Paramount has not totally given up on Star Trek 4. With Paramount+ being positioned as an important facet of the studio’s production arm, we are hoping that the project can find its new director and get off the ground sooner rather than later.
