Although Paramount is obviously interested in developing another Star Trek movie, it's never been clear if we'll see J.J. Abrams recast after the release of Star Trek: Beyond. Deadline has reported that the studio expects to begin production on the new Star Trek sequel by the end of the year and has begun talks with Chris Pine to reprise his role as Captain James T. Kirk.
Last year it was announced that the Star Trek sequel would be directed by WandaVision director Matt Shakman. He also oversaw a design by Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires based on a design by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Paramount has scheduled the film for a December 2024 release. Though Paramount is only negotiating with Chris Pine at this time, Deadline says it also intends to bring back the rest of the Abrams cast, including Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Karl Urban as McCoy, John Cho as Sulu, and Simon Pegg as Scotsman. While it will be fun for this cast to return for at least one more adventure, it will be a bit bittersweet as the late Anton Yelchin obviously won't be returning as Chekov. We will surely miss him. In a statement, J.J. abrahams said:
We're excited to announce that we're hard at work on a new Star Trek movie shooting later in the year that will feature our original cast and some new characters that I think will be a lot of fun, get exciting, and help take 'Star Trek.' to places you've never seen before. We're excited about this movie, we've got a number of other stories we're talking about that we think will be really exciting, so we can't wait for you to see what we come up with. But until then, live long and prosper.
Since the release of Star Trek: Beyond, there have been more than a few potential Star Trek movies on the drawing board, but none seemed to fit the bill. One of the earlier projects was based on an idea by Quentin Tarantino and written by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant). Noah Hawley (Fargo) was also developing another Star Trek project, but said in 2020 that Paramount had shelved the film. It was also reported last March that Star Trek: Discovery's Kalinda Vazquez was writing the script for the new Star Trek movie based on an original idea.
