Paramount is set to boldly go back to the world of Star Trek, with J.J. Abrams announcing that a fourth film in the series was in development.
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The news was announced by Abrams during Paramount’s Investors Day Presentation on February 15, but the director won’t be behind the upcoming film. Instead, he will produce the film, which is set to be directed by Matt Shakman (WandaVision) with a screenplay by Josh Friedman (Avatar 2) and Cameron Squires (WandaVision) based on an earlier draft by Lindsey Beer (Sierra Burgess Is a Loser) and Geneva Roberston-Dworet (Captain Marvel).
According to Abrams, the original cast of the three most recent Star Trek films — including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, and Simon Pegg — will all be returning, along with some new characters.
“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 and some new characters that I think are going to be really fun and exciting and help take Star Trek into areas that you’ve just never seen before,” said Abrams. “We’re thrilled about this film, we have a bunch of other stories that we’re talking about that we think will be really exciting so can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper.”
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It’s been quite some time in between Star Trek films, with the last film, Star Trek Beyond, releasing in 2016. Since then, according to a report from Variety, Paramount has been doing market research into potential audience interest for another Star Trek film and determined that fans still cared enough about the cast for another movie to be made with them.
