Bad news for anyone hoping to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations with Star Trek 4, because Paramount have officially beamed the film out of its intended December 22nd, 2023 release date.
The news comes as another blow for the fourth installment of the Chris Pine captained timeline, which has been in-and-out of development hell since 2016’s really-rather-good Star Trek Beyond underperformed at the box-office. Although it hardly comes as a shock following the departure of WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman, who abandoned the USS Enterprise in order to take more of the Disney dollar and resurrect their own quad-centric blockbuster, Fantastic Four.
In the intervening years since Beyond tapped out with $343M worldwide, we’ve had talk of the much ballyhooed Tarantino Trek, a version from Fargo creator Noah Hawley that hit the reverse thrusters in 2020, and a direct sequel which would have seen Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk meet up with his father George Kirk, played by Chris Hemsworth, reprising his role from the 2009 reboot as Kirk Sr., but talks soon broke down.
This leaves one of Paramount’s most lucrative franchises once again docked in pre-production purgatory, which is strange at a time when the brand is flourishing on the small screen with the likes of Picard, Discovery, and Lower Decks all receiving multiple season orders.
Starring Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Karl Urban as Bones, John Cho as Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov and Simon Pegg as Scotty, J.J. Abrams 2009 Star Trek reboot was a critical and commercial success, spawning two sequels for a combined gross of $1.2 billion at the global box-office.
SEE ALSO: To Boldly Go: Ranking Every Star Trek Movie From Worst To Best
Let us know if you’re disappointed that you will no longer be able to set your phaser to stun during Christmas 2023 or beyond by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
