Beam Me Back, Scotty! ‘Star Trek 4’ Is in Talks With Chris Pine

Paramount Chris Pine as Captain Kirk

On Stardate 96627.34 (January 10, 2019), writer Scott Medelson told the world why we were not going to get a fourth “Star Trek” film. Medelson, who covers the film industry for Forbes, gave a lengthy argument as to why fans should give up ever expecting to see Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, and the rest of the crew back aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. 

“Once ‘Star Wars’ rode back into town, there was no reason for general audiences to get excited about another “new” ‘Star Trek’ movie,” Medelson wrote in his article. “Just as ‘Star Trek Nemesis’ paled in comparison to the ‘Star Wars’ prequels, the Harry Potter flicks, Spider-Man and Lord of the Rings, so too does ‘Star Trek’ no longer play as an event movie alongside ‘The Last Jedi,’ ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and ‘Aquaman.’”

Medelson wrote that after talks failed with stars, Pine and Chris Hemsworth apparently were in no mood to negotiate with Paramount over pay, and the hoped-for fourth film in the Kelvin series was officially scrubbed.

Since this article, a funny thing happened. The “Star Wars franchise has made some interesting moves. The first thing they did was make movies that fans did not like, including “The Last Jedi” and “The Rise of Skywalker.” The latter film represents the final Wars film to be presented in theaters, and Disney has pointed much of its efforts into television. “Star Wars” and Marvel are pumping out TV shows now for the Disney+ network. 

Rise of Skywalker

While this shift in focus makes sense for business reasons, it also was because “Rise of the Skywalker” was “terrible,” according to Medelson. Collider said that “Rise” was “so disastrous that it retroactively ruins the otherwise wonderful sequel trilogy.”

On top of that, the next “Star Wars” film, which was supposed to be helmed by “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins, has also apparently been canceled by Disney. 

So, now that “Star Wars” has abandoned movie theaters — whether by design or perhaps to let fans forget about “The Rise of Skywalker” — there seems to be a new opportunity to boldly go where no one has gone before. 

Thanks to a recent report from Deadline, we know that the fourth “Star Trek” film will begin production by the end of 2022. According to writer Mike Flemming, Jr., Paramount has restarted talks with Pine (Kirk). Their intention is to get the whole Kelvin crew back together. That includes Quinto (Spock), Saldana (Uhura), Karl Urban (McCoy), John Cho (Sulu), and Simon Pegg (Scotty). 

We reported back in July of 2021 that J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot would be producing, and that Matt Shakman of “WandaVision,” would be the director. 

Simon Says

Pegg, who portrays the Kelvin version of Scotty, spoke to Collider in January and admitted that he didn’t know too much about the development of the new film.

“I don’t know much,” Pegg said in the interview with writer Steve Weintraub. “I’ve met Matt [Shakman] briefly and seems like a great guy. I love the work he did on ‘WandaVision.’” 

“It’s always waiting with these things because the world is an uncertain place,” said Pegg. “COVID’s thrown everything into a spin. There’s so many factors that have to align in order for these things to happen. I’m just quietly waiting for news basically.”

“And I texted J.J. the other day and said, ‘Tell me what’s happening.’ He’s just like, ‘We’re waiting for news.’”

ViacomCBS Changed its Name

Perhaps some of the news that Abrams is waiting on is that ViacomCBS would be changing its name to simply “Paramount.” This was announced today, and the change is effective this Wednesday.

“Paramount has always represented brilliant storytelling for audiences around the globe, on the big screen, the small screen, and every device in between,” said Shari Redstone, the company’s chairwoman (as reported by C|NET). “Today, we are thrilled to announce that ViacomCBS has become Paramount Global — or simply Paramount.”

According to CNBC, Paramount “added 9.4 million global streaming subscribers in [2021], taking its total count to 56 million subscribers.”

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