‘Star Trek 4’ Removed From Release Calendar

This has really been a long voyage home.

The sad ongoing saga of Star Trek 4 has gotten even sadder, as Paramount has removed the project from its upcoming release calendar. They had previously slated the film to open in theaters on December 22, 2023.

This is just the latest bump in a long and pothole-ridden road for this fourth Star Trek film featuring the “Kelvin Timeline” cast of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, and more. A fourth Star Trek movie with this crew was announced along with the release of the previous movie, 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. But that version — which would have teamed Pine’s Captain Kirk with Chris Hemsworth as his dad — never got off the ground. Neither did a subsequent version that would have been directed by Quentin Tarantino, or another version directed by Noah Hawley. The most recent concept in development was going to be directed by Matt Shakman, but earlier this summer he left Star Trek 4 to take over Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four movie.

Although Paramount announced that Star Trek 4 would be in production by the end of this year and released around Christmas 2023, they hadn’t actually gotten Pine and the rest of the cast to sign on for the project at the time; Pine later claimed he had no idea they were going to announce the movie when they did. It doesn’t seem like there was much actual momentum behind the film beyond the proclamations that it was coming.

While we wait for the inevitable next announcement about a Star Trek 4 we probably will never actually see, we can watch the many Star Trek shows on Paramount+, including Discovery and the very entertaining Strange New Worlds, which will feature a young Captain Kirk on its upcoming second season (albeit one not played by Chris Pine). That’s just as good as a new movie, right?