13 Movies Already Cancelled In 2019 (And Why)

2. Star Trek 4

What We Knew

It's been some time since we knew Star Trek 4 was happening. It was actually announced before Star Trek Beyond's unfortunately poor box office performance had been posted, with Paramount confirming that Chris Hemsworth was returning as Captain Kirk's father.

Presumably, we would have seen even more timeline tinkering for that to be a possibility as Chris Pine was set to return alongside him (as well as the rest of the supporting cast, as long as they all signed on). Other than that, no word ever really came out.

Why It Was Cancelled & The Future

The writing for Star Trek 4 was on the wall as soon as Beyond failed to hit Paramount's expectations. It had been too expensive by half for the box office haul to go by unquestioned and the studio's response was to seek to cut costs for the planned follow-up. Unfortunately for everyone involved, they chose to do that by apparently trying to renege on contract offers to Pine and Hemsworth, who promptly refused and apparently left the project.

From there, the project seemed to trundle on slowly, but SJ Clarkson had been hired as the first female director in the franchise's history. That suggested positivity, but then she departed as revealed in the announcement of her directing the Game Of Thrones prequel series, which also proclaimed Star Trek 4 cancelled.

The future of Star Trek for now seems to be in Quentin Tarantino's R-rated movie project, but there might be life in the JJ Abrams Kelvin timeline if that and the new Star Trek TV shows work well with fans.