Kirsten Howard

Jul 18, 2017

Zachary Quinto confirms that development on Star Trek 4 is still in its early stages, one year on…

This time last year, Paramount, Skydance and Bad Robot boldly announced that Star Trek 4 was on the cards.

“In the next installment of the epic space adventure, Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk will cross paths with a man he never had a chance to meet, but whose legacy has haunted him since the day he was born: his father,” they teased.

But after Star Trek Beyond ultimately grossed $343m worldwide – $100m down on the takings for Star Trek Into Darkness – things got a little quieter.

Since the announcement, various cast members have weighed in on the likelihood of the film ever happening. Chris Hemsworth, due to return as George Kirk in the proposed sequel after a brief appearance in the first reboot, seemed pretty positive about it back in January, but Zachary Quinto – who seems to absolutely want to reprise his role as alt-timeline Spock – has been somewhat less so.

After admitting a few months back that there’s “no guarantee” we’ll get a fourth film, despite a script being in the works, Quinto has once again been asked for another update, and it seems that since Simon Pegg and Doug Jung hinted they were working on a screenplay last December, the film continues to remain firmly mired in the writing stage.

“If I had [an update] I would give it to you,” Quinto told Entertainment Weekly. “I’m expecting [the news of a fourth movie] to be true, but it’s always this way. It’s like, ‘Yes, we’re going to do it!’ but then there’s always a process – writing a script being primary among them – and I know that’s what they’re working on now. I think we’re all really excited to go back and we’ll do that whenever the phone rings and it’s J.J. on the other end.”

The actor didn’t seem too concerned about the development timescale on Star Trek 4, however.

There is years between the first few movies – I think four years between the first two and three between the second and the third. So we are kind of on track. It was two years ago we shot the last one and it came out last year so I feel we are still in the strike zone.”

So, not great news overall, but perhaps we shouldn’t lose hope just yet.

More as we have it.