Imagine a former co-worker told the world you were coming back to work with them without your knowledge. That’s apparently what happened last week to several members of the cast of the recent theatrical Star Trek films.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, actors such as Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, and John Cho were caught by surprise when franchise director and producer J.J. Abrams told Paramount investors a fourth film was in the works, with them as the stars. Representations for the actors “were not aware that an announcement for another film was coming, much less that their clients would be touted as a part of the deal, and certainly not that their clients would be shooting a movie by year’s end,” the trade reports. One possible exception is Chris Pine, who has reportedly begun early negotiations as he’s considered the lead character and key person to get back.
Frankly, having followed all the drama over a fourth Star Trek film in the past few years, we were a little shocked too. In the past five years, multiple iterations of new Star Trek films have been in various stages of development, none of which made it out of the gate. Abrams was going to produce one that could bring back Chris Hemsworth as Kirk’s dad. Legion’s Noah Hawley had a take. And most famously, a script was being written based on an idea from Quentin Tarantino. Those are just the famous examples. Then, in July of last year, news broke that WandaVision director Matt Shakman was on board. But that was basically the last we heard of it until last week when J.J. Abrams declared “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.”
If it all works out though — and, let’s be honest, it will if Paramount throws enough money at it — filming could begin in the fall in order to hit next year’s release date. And we hope it does. This crew deserves at least one more trip into the final frontier. Just make sure they know what’s in the script first.