Matt Shakman officially reveals why he left Star Trek 4

Star Trek 4’s production was disrupted by the abrupt departure of director Matt Shakman.

Star Trek 4 was supposed to be the fourth installment of the Kelvin timeline Star Trek films. It was supposed to be produced in late-2022, with a year-end target date to begin filming. Since we’re well into February by now and we still haven’t seen anything on the front of a new film, it would appear that didn’t happen.

In fact, we know it didn’t happen as Star Trek itself had delayed the project in the meantime.   Matt Shakman was set to be the guy who would lead the project going forward, with the hope that he’d stick around and do more with the franchise. After all, his Wanda Vision series for Disney+ was a pretty successful show, so why not?

Unfortunately, though, Shakman left the project before production ever truly got underway and a big reason for that had to do with the Fantastic Four film he was tapped to direct. Now he’s talking to The Wrap about why he left the Star Trek project despite his supposed “great time” working on the project.

"I had a great time working on ‘Star Trek’ for a little over a year, working closely with J.J. Abrams and everyone at Paramount, and I love that franchise, and I love that cast that J.J. put together, and it would have been an unbelievable pleasure to work with them on the fourth installment there. But movies have different journeys and momentums and and schedules are a little bit mercurial, and so when the ‘Fantastic Four’ opportunity came up, it was just too hard to pass up, and to go back home to Marvel, a place that I worked on ‘WandaVision’ at, with those people who are wonderful collaborators."

Matt Shakman’s Star Trek departure doesn’t add up

Simply put, I believe Shakman when he says he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to direct the Fantastic Four film. What I don’t believe is the overly-polished, everyone is wonderful, the theme of how he said it. See, there’s a game to be played, and one of the rules for the game where public image is everything; is to never tell the truth.

Politics, pro sports, Hollywood. Ya can’t trust anyone in those fields.

Shakman’s glowing review of his time with Paramount did not touch on the chaos that surrounded the film. First, not one of the core cast was under contract for the fourth film when it was announced. That’s been confirmed by the cast themselves. We knew weeks before Shakman left the project that there was no script.

Then there was the fact that Karl Urban wasn’t going to be available for filming when the film was supposedly set to start filming. This was again something confirmed by Urban himself, who was already contracted to start filming on the newest season of The Boys right around when Star Trek 4 would start production.

Clearly, there was too much chaos and Shakman left to avoid the headache. I don’t blame him at all, I’m sure the Fantastic Four production will go a lot simpler. It would just be nice to hear someone hold Paramount responsible for their buffoonery over the last year.