Star Trek 4 was going to reunite Captain James T Kirk with his father in a timey-wimey adventure and seemed like such a sure thing – until it wasn’t.
Back in August, it was reported that Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth had both walked away from negotiations to star in the fourth movie over the studio allegedly trying to force them to take pay cuts.
Pine later added some hope to the situation by saying that he’d “love to be involved” in Star Trek 4, while William Shatner has supported Pine’s apparent decision to ask for more money.
“Chris is in a wonderful position in that he is so good and such a leading man, that he has many opportunities to explore without being Captain Kirk,” he noted. “So he is in a really good negotiating position. I think he’s doing the right thing in terms of getting more money, as the movies seem to be making a lot of money.”
Since the original report, we haven’t had any official confirmation one way or the other about Star Trek 4.
What’s more, producers were said to be waiting to lock down both Pine and Hemsworth before negotiating deals for supporting cast members like Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura) and Simon Pegg (Scotty), so it’s hard to tell if the movie is going to go ahead at the moment.
But the question is whether it even should go ahead if Pine isn’t involved.
Having successfully rebooted the movie franchise in its own alternate “Kelvin” timeline, Pine has won over any doubters with his Captain Kirk and it’s hard to see the role being recast again, at least not without a complete overhaul of the cast and another reboot.
At the same time, Captain Kirk can’t just disappear from the Enterprise – despite the claim by Dredd producer Adi Shankar that Star Trek 4 losing Pine “is not a big deal”. “This is the universe presenting an opportunity to do something different,” he added.
The planned timey-wimey storyline could provide a way out (assuming Hemsworth at least signed on) – someone else from the Enterprise could get trapped back in time with George Kirk. But that wouldn’t exactly have the same emotional impact.
So if Pine isn’t going to do the movie, it appears that the only option is to entirely overhaul the current plan for Star Trek 4. However, with that other Star Trek movie – from Quentin Tarantino, no less – in the works too, perhaps the best thing for Paramount and Skydance to do is to leave the “Kelvin” timeline behind.
After Star Trek Into Darkness met with mixed reviews, Star Trek Beyond disappointed at the box office, taking “just” $343.5 million, more than $100 million behind the sequel and also less than the 2009 reboot delivered.
So you couldn’t blame the producers if they just thought the interest wasn’t there for a fourth movie, meaning it wouldn’t be a massive shock if they simply decided to wait a few years before rebooting again.
In the meantime, the focus could shift to Tarantino’s Star Trek movie and fans would also have the burgeoning TV universe to satisfy them.
We’re not ruling out the possibility that Pine and Hemsworth will come to an agreement for Star Trek 4 and everything will go ahead swimmingly. The prospect of the two reuniting is an exciting one and one we hope does eventually happen, especially as it will mark the franchise’s first ever female director in SJ Clarkson.
But if there’s no possible chance of Star Trek 4 boldly going back into the past, then perhaps it’s best left where it is.
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