Star Trek’s Chris Pine may be more inclined to return to franchise after latest flop

Chris Pine may be more pushy about returning to Star Trek now more than ever before.

Chris Pine is up for Star Trek 4, we know this, and while the film franchise for the Trek brand has stalled out at the moment. The fact is that with enough push from a star the magnitude of Pine, things can change quickly. And Pine may be back to try and put pressure on Paramount, especially with his latest flop.

It’s been a rough 2023 for Pine, who started with the dissolution of the Star Trek film franchise as a whole due to Paramount’s incompetence, then his film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which did well with critics and fans, stumbled at the box office, only $208.2 million on a film with a reported $150 million budget (marketing costs are not part of reported production budgets) and now his directorial debut has gone poorly.

According to Cinemablend, his directorial debut, Poolman, failed to impress at all when it debuted at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It was so bad that writer Sean O’Connell seriously questioned if Pine should ever get another shot at something uniquely original ever again.

The film, described by some as a rip-off of Chinatown, may have made it far more likely for Pine to go back to Trek, especially if the film is as bad as advertised.

Pine’s non-Star Trek failures may see him push for a fourth film

This is speculation, of course, no one knows what Pine is thinking but it wouldn’t be surprising at all for Pine to now push for a fourth film more than ever to help his fading star. If this Poolman film is as bad as advertised, then Pine’s stock will take a hit, as he not only directed it but he wrote and starred in it.

Pine may need a boost following such a rough outing, and Star Trek may be the best place for him to reestablish himself as a leading man who can carry not just a franchise but an original property once again.