With another Star Trek movie in the Kelvin timeline on the way, Chris Pine has been chatting about the current big screen state of Star Trek.
The big news to emerge out of Paramount’s posh investor presentation in February was that it looks like we’ll be getting a fourth Star Trek film in the Kelvin timeline, a prospect which has seemed increasingly unlikely over the past few years.
Paramount has announced that the film will be directed WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman, with JJ Abrams producing. However, as far as we know, casting negotiations are still ‘underway’, meaning that Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg and company aren’t yet locked into the project. Franchise lead Chris Pine has met with the filmmakers though, and offered some thoughts of his own whilst promoting his new movie, All the Old Knives
“Conceptually, I love it. I love Star Trek. Again, I love the messaging of it. I love the character. I love my friends with whom I get to play. It’s a great gig”, he said.
“You know, I think Star Trek for me, it’s an interesting one. We always tried to get the huge international market. It was always about making the billion dollars. It was always this billion-dollar mark because Marvel was making a billion. Billion, billion, billion. We struggled with it because Star Trek, for whatever reason, its core audience is rabid. Like rabid, as you know. To get these people that are interested that maybe are Star Wars fans or think Star Trek is not cool or whatever, proven to be – we’ve definitely done a good job of it but not the billion-dollar kind of job that they want”.
Pine would go on to offer his own thoughts on what a Star Trek movie should be, adding: “I’ve always thought that Star Trek should operate in the zone that is smaller. You know, it’s not a Marvel appeal. It’s like, let’s make the movie for the people that love this group of people, that love this story, that love Star Trek… But make it for a price and make it, so that if it makes a half-billion dollars, that’s really good.”
Without knowing any of the project details, it’s difficult to decipher whether Pine is endorsing Shakman’s new project or engaging in some public brinkmanship ahead of negotiations. Either way, it’s a position that Paramount has placed itself into by failing to lock the project’s casting ahead of announcing it.
We’d be all for a smaller Star Trek movie that focused more on the characters and perhaps less on the spectacle, especially if it meant the movie didn’t have to reach such a high bar of profitability to be considered a ‘success’. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Production is targeted to begin later this year, and although Paramount originally elected not to put out a release date, it is thought that a Christmas 2023 is the aim.
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