Star Trek 4 Reportedly Canceled

The Enterprise’s five-year mission may be over, according to Deadline, which reports that the already imperiled Star Trek 4 has been shelved. This enormous tidbit comes as a footnote to the news that S.J. Clarkson, who was hired to direct the next big-screen Star Trek installment, will helm the pilot for HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series. According to Deadline, Clarkson’s became available after Star Trek 4 was canceled by Paramount.

io9 reached out to confirm the news with Paramount, but the studio declined to comment, leaving this next Star Trek adventure floating directionless in space. Unfortunately, this news doesn’t really come as a surprise based on how the project had been developing over the past few months.

Star Trek 4, which was set to see the return of the Kelvin timeline cast, was put in jeopardy back in August 2018, when it was reported that both Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth, who were to star as Captain James Kirk and George Kirk respectively, had dropped out of contract negotiations with Paramount.

According to a brief synopsis released by the studio, Captain Kirk would “cross paths with a man he never had a chance to meet, but whose legacy has haunted him since the day he was born: his father” in the movie. 

The script was co-written by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who made uncredited contributions to Star Trek Beyond. Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead) had also been reportedly cast in the movie. 

As recently as April 2018, Paramount revealed that it had plans to make at least two more Star Trek movies. We can assume one of them was Star Trek 4, which well… The other, a pitch from director Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), is apparently still in the works at the studio. There was also rumor of a third script being developed at Paramount, although details on that project are scarce. 

For now, it seems we are left to mourn the end of the Kelvin Star Trek series, at least for the time being. In the meantime, we still have Star Trek: Discovery season 2 to look forward to as well as the upcoming Captain Picard show and two new animated series. As always, we’ll keep you updated on the latest from the final frontier. 

John Saavedra is an associate editor at Den of Geek. Read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @johnsjr9.