When it was announced that Paramount was planning on reuniting the Kelvin timeline Star Trek cast for a fourth science fiction movie, fans were shocked. But it seems we weren’t the only ones because Chris Pine and his crew reportedly had no idea the announcement was coming either.
The Hollywood Reporter was told by its sources that “most, if not all,” of the main cast – including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldaña, John Cho, Karl Urban, and Simon Pegg – were unaware of plans to revive the franchise let alone that it would start filming by the end of the year.
According to THR, Pine is now negotiating with Paramount to star in the film and is seen as the “lynchpin” for the whole project. A fourth Star Trek film starring the rebooted cast was planned after Beyond. However, it’s been reported that the rising star (and the associated paycheque) of Pine made him too expensive for the project, and plans for the film – which would have seen Kirk travel back in time to meet his father (Chris Hemsworth) – were shelved.
Since then, there’s been several different big-screen Star Trek projects pitched. Quentin Tarantino was allegedly developing a film based on the episode, A Piece of the Action, which featured a planet of gangsters.
Before he got distracted by the Alien TV series, Noah Hawley was supposed to work on a pitch that would be set in another timeline, but that fell apart. With Paramount looking to establish itself among streaming services like Disney Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, it’s refocused its energies on Star Trek.
That involves clawing back Discovery from Netflix, exploring new Star Trek series like Lower Decks, Picard, and Prodigy while also working on new and exciting films based on the sci-fi series.