Getting a fourth Star Trek movie featuring the series’ current cast has proven more difficult than bringing humpback whales from the past into the future in order to prevent an alien probe from diestroying all life on Earth. Almost immediately after the previous film, Star Trek Beyond, came out in 2016, Paramount announced another sequel, this one uniting Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk with his father, played by Chris Hemsworth. That movie never happened, and neither did subsequent potential films, including one that Quentin Tarantino wanted to direct, and another that was overseen by Fargo creator Noah Hawley.

The last we heard, WandaVision’s Matt Shakman was the latest filmmaker attached to this troubled project. And today during a ViacomCBS presentation to investors, J.J. Abrams confirmed that the movie was finally happening — with the plan to start shooting the film by the end of 2022.

Deadline later added that Paramount has “begun talks” with the core cast: Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, and Simon Pegg. They also claim Shakman’s film currently has a script by Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires.

I can’t say this is the most exciting version of this material that’s come along in the last six years — how could you not want to see what Quentin Tarantino would do with a Star Trek movie, especially after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? Still, that current Trek movie cast with Pine and Quinto and Saldana is so great, and Star Trek Beyond was a very underrated Star Trek movie. They deserve another shot, even if their five-year mission should have been over about eight years ago at this point.

Great Movies That Became Horrible Franchises

Sometimes the best movies make the worst franchises. In the ten examples below, inventive, groundbreaking cinema became the source material for some of our least favorite film series.
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