Last year, before Paramount’s Star Trek Beyond even hit theaters, producer J.J. Abrams began sharing plans for a fourth installment in the rebooted film series. While he did confirm that much of the Beyond cast would return for another outing, fans’ interests were piqued by Abrams’ reveal that Chris Hemsworth would return to his role as George Kirk, the father of Chris Pine’s James Kirk. However, according to a recent statement from Spock himself, Zachary Quinto, it’s entirely possible that Star Trek 4 may never see the light of day.
While speaking with Today to promote his indie drama Aardvark, Quinto offered up an honest update on the status of the future franchise entry. He said, “I know that they are working on a script for another one and we’ll see how that all plays out, but the nice thing about that experience is that the time in between those big tentpole films allows us to go off and cultivate a lot of different creative experiences for ourselves… I’m hopeful that we’ll do another one, but there’s no guarantee.”
A fourth film in the rebooted Star Trek series seemed like a safer bet a few days before Beyond came out than it does now. Beyond was by no means a flop, but it also didn’t break out at the box office like the folks over at Paramount probably hoped it would. The domestic and worldwide box office numbers for Beyond were well below its series predecessors, 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness. During their box office runs, Star Trek and Into Darkness took in $385 million and $467 million, respectively, while Beyond brought in roughly $343 million. That number is especially startling when considering that the film’s budget alone hovered around the $185 million mark.
It’s easy to forget that Star Trek films don’t perform like Star Wars movies, or even most superhero movies for that matter, at the box office. Star Trek, of course, has a large and devoted fanbase, but it still isn’t as appealing to mainstream audience members as several other big-budget blockbusters, which certainly would make the studio more reluctant to move forward on a sequel.
The script for Star Trek 4 is being written by Patrick McKay and John D. Payne, although Beyond co-writer Simon Pegg is supposedly on scripting duties as well.
What do you think? Do you want to see Star Trek 4 or should Paramount just keep the series at a trilogy? Let us know in the comments below…
Originally published April 22, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
