Matt Shakman departed the director’s seat for Star Trek 4 to work on the Fantastic Four
It’s been almost seven years since we last saw a Star Trek movie on the big screen. Star Trek Beyond debuted in July 2016, and it underperformed at the box office. Still, Paramount made the decision to move forward with Star Trek 4…only it hasn’t moved forward…at least not by much, but Matt Shakman, who’d been slated to direct the next installment in the series, still thinks there’s hope for the movie even though all signs point to the opposite.
IN an interview with Collider [via Trekmovie], Shakman was asked about the movie, and his response gives us reason to believe that Star Trek 4 is still underway.
"“I’m probably not really allowed to speak too much about it, because I think what they’re still working on is a version of what I had been working on for the time that I was involved.”"
Matt Shakman was going to make a large tentpole film for Star Trek 4.
With a movie as big as Star Trek, scaling it down wouldn’t be easy, and Shakman admitted that the film he wanted to make was gong to be expensive. Just bringing in the cast of well-known actors wasn’t cheap.
"“You have a large cast as well, many of whom are really well-known, because they’re amazing. And so just bringing that group together again, isn’t a cheap event. So I think, yes, the movie that I was planning to make was going to be a large tentpole film.”"
That very well could be what’s holding up the process for the next Star Trek film. Paramount is already spending millions of dollars to produce the current line-up of Star Trek series for Paramount+ so it’s possible the studio is holding onto the purse strings, so to speak, until there’s more leeway in the budget. And that could happen with the final season of Star Trek: Picard wrapping up this year. Either way, it certain sounds like we haven’t seen the last of Star Trek 4 after all.