It’s Time To Stop Trying To Make ‘Star Trek 4’ Happen

It was on the Monday before Star Trek Beyond's theatrical debut that Paramount announced they were making a fourth Star Trek movie. It was a theoretical announcement intended to stoke excitement about the Star Trek 3quel and create the presumption of success. Despite good reviews, the film earned less than it deserved, earning less than it cost on a $180 million budget. We have learned that the fourth film has been removed from the release schedule. If they are feeling lucky, the Lost Kingdom will move from December 25 to December 22 or December 15. In the summer of 2016 we were not as close to Star Trek 4 as we are today. It is time to acknowledge defeat.

At this point, it isn't going to happen, at least not in terms of Chris Pine, John Cho, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, and others. Chris and Pine refused to take pay cuts, which caused the project to stall. Over the next few years, various versions helmed by Noah Hawley, Quentin Tarantino, and S.J.Clarkson, as well as WandaVision's Matt Shakman, were developed. The fourth film was announced during a Paramount+ event, meaning no deals were in place, and everyone was likely to demand top-dollar salaries for a film that Paramount very much wanted to make. The supposed Star Trek 4 is no longer planned for December 22, 2023.

It is one of the great Christmas tentpoles that weren't. It is ironic that the last man standing is the sequel to James Wan's film. Since Star Trek Beyond opened with just $58 million domestic, not every franchise is able to pull the same amount of money. The return of Star Wars in 2015 was worse than before, and that was before the release ofGuardians of the galaxy. If Star Trek 2 had opened in June of 2012 we might be talking differently.

June 2012 is when Star Trek 2 would have been an event movie. In a less crowded summer, it would have been the best sequel of the year. It would have stopped The Amazing Spider-Man before it even started and possibly stopped the trend of arbitrary reboots before it even began. The tentpoles of the summer of 2013 were Iron Man 3, Fast & Furious 6 and Man of Steel. Independence Day: Resurgence was one of the big movies of the summer of 2016 along with X-men: Apocalypse, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Ghostbusters.

In 2016 there was a surplus of like minded franchise-friendly action/fantasy flicks. In 2009, a mega-budget, blockbuster-minded Star Trek movie was created, but it was destroyed by The Force Awakens, the other two films and the third film. After years of high-quality Star Trek shows filling up the Paramount+ line-up, I don't think an explicit Star Trek 4 will be more special in the foreseeable future. The Next Generation crew is doing what was cool and different in 2009, but is now par for the course with rebooting or new characters. There aren't many ways to make Star Trek as unique as it was in the summer of 2009.

I think a $90 million Star Trek movie with the same cast but with less of a need to deliver high-end spectacle would be an intelligent play. In the summer of 2009, the lure of Star Trek pulling a Dark Knight was reasonable. It didn't happen in either of the previous years. Maybe audiences were curious about the new, action-packed, IMAX-friendly, sexy- cool Star Trek just once, and that their initial interest in the well-received sci-fi actioner didn't mean they would show up every time like clockwork. It wasn't going to be the next Transformer. If Paramount can ever budget it to where it needs to be, it will be Sonic the Hedgehog.