10 Recently Announced Movies That Will Probably Never Happen
6. Star Trek 4
You know a movie's had a hard time coming to the big screen when there's literally a damn Wikipedia page about its development.
The third entry into J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot franchise, Star Trek Beyond, was released in the summer of 2016, and though a fourth film was already being talked-up pre-release, Beyond's underwhelming box office performance halted it getting the greenlight.
By 2018, negotiations with Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth to lead Star Trek 4 had broken down, and so Paramount ended up considering pitches for various new Trek films from a spate of filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino, S. J. Clarkson, and Noah Hawley.
These projects were all ultimately put on hold, and this past July it was confirmed that Paramount had instead hired WandaVision's Matt Shakman to direct a Beyond sequel written by Lindsey Beer (Sierra Burgess Is a Loser) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel).
Though Chris Pine and his co-stars haven't yet been confirmed for the project, Paramount is reportedly eager to get the franchise up and running again, hoping to start shooting next year for a December 22, 2023 release.
Josh Friedman (Snowpiercer series) and Cameron Squires (WandaVision) are currently re-writing the script.
As promising as this all sounds, there have been so many aborted Trek movies over the last five years that it's difficult to accept this new one will actually stick, especially without Pine or any other cast members saying much of anything about it.
Given Beyond's lackluster box office performance, a 7-year gap between movies likely won't do the IP many favours, and before long it'll probably make more sense to just tell a new series of stories focused on an entirely new set of characters.