Zoe Saldana Reveals What's Holding Star Trek 4 Back
It looks like Start Trek 4 is not happening – at least for now. With the exit of the project's director Matt Shakman and Paramount removing Star Trek 4 from its 2023 release calendar the future of the movie hangs in the balance.
In a recent interview with the 20 Questions: On Deadline podcast, star Zoe Saldana shared her thoughts on why Star Trek 4 may have been pulled from the calendar. She believes there may be "something else" behind the movie's delay – not only scheduling conflicts for the cast and the production crew.
"We were in touch with J.J. and we were trying to sort of see if we were going to be able to shoot this past fall. I don't think it was possible. I have my sort of ideas that maybe it was just like schedules were very… we couldn't manage to get a whole cast and a whole crew to sort of come together. But I think as well it probably has something else to do with the project. But I know that we're all on the same page that we would love nothing more than to be able to come back," she explained.
But what could it be? Is the search for a new director to take the helm of the movie still ongoing? Or could there be some issues with the script – back in summer Chris Pine set to play the legendary Captain Kirk did not have it. Besides, there could be some other money issues as well.
As one Star Trek fan on Reddit suggested Paramount is focused on making Transformers movies because the Chinese are absolutely crazy about talking car robots and their cinema audience is now larger than the US – a good reason to shoot and earn. Another commentator suggested that the reason is that the economics of this movie just don't work because all the main cast timed out of their contracts and the last movie Star Trek Beyond did underperform.
"So now you have a franchise where the film cannot (because of casting) be done on the cheap but also can't justify a large budget. Paramount keeps attaching scripts and directors… for finance partners," one Redditor said.
The Star Trek movie franchise was launched in 1979 and immediately won hearts and minds of people around the globe with Canadian actor William Shatner becoming the iconic Captain Kirk. As a team leader he inspired his crew to explore new worlds and civilizations, and "boldly go where no man has gone before".
In 2009 Paramount rebooted the franchise with Chris Pine taking on the role of James T. Kirk. The first film of the sequence – Star Trek – casting Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu), Anton Yelchin (Chekov) and Karl Urban ( McCoy) proved to be a success. It was followed by sequels Star Trek: Into Darkness in 2013 and Star Trek Beyond in 2016.