The long, long-awaited Star Trek 4 has now been removed from the Paramount Pictures release slate. Confirmed by Paramount, the removal of Star Trek 4 was something of an inevitability following the departure of director Matt Shakman, who walked away from the project last month.
Star Trek 4 had been scheduled for release on December 22, 2023, with the cast of the Kelvin timeline, including Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Karl Urban as Bones, John Cho as Sulu, and Simon Pegg as Scotty, all expected to return. Sadly, Star Trek fans are going to have to wait a lot longer to see the continuing adventures of the USS Enterprise.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
While the sequel has now been removed from the upcoming release slate, it is understood that Star Trek director J.J. Abrams remains on board as a producer through his Bad Robot production company.
The plan for Star Trek 4 was to have WandaVision director Matt Shakman take the reins. Unfortunately, Shakman walked away from helming Star Trek 4 after instead deciding to return to the world of MCU for their upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. “Matt Shakman is an incredibly talented filmmaker, and we regret the timing didn’t align for him to direct our upcoming Star Trek film,” Paramount Pictures said in a statement at the time. “We are grateful for his many contributions, are excited about the creative vision of this next chapter and look forward to bringing it to audiences all around the world.”
Will the Long-Awaited Star Trek 4 Ever Happen?
Paramount
Production on Star Trek 4 has been extremely up-and-down for years, with many believing that the sequel would never happen. This removal from release is sure to add to these concerns. One of the most bizarre things to occur behind the scenes is the apparent blindsiding of the cast, including lead Chris Pine, who revealed that he had no idea a Star Trek 4 had been given the green light.
“I think everybody was like, ‘Did you hear about this?’” Pine said of the recent sequel reveal. “We’re usually the last people to find out, but I do know we’re all excited. Whenever they want to send us a script, we’re ready for it… We haven’t seen a script. I don’t know anything about it.”
At the time, Abrams had stated that Star Trek 4 would begin filming soon. “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 in a statement. “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.” Evidently, this is no longer the case.
