Star Trek actor Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in the the Kelvin timeline of films launched by director J.J. Abrams in 2009, recently explained why a planned fourth film is stuck in production hell.
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A fourth film in the Kelvin timeline was announced back in February 2022 by Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins and Abrams. The film was expected to see the return of Chris Pine, Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldaña, and John Cho.
However, almost immediately after the announcement, The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit reported, “Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that most, if not all, teams for the franchise’s primary players — who include Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldaña and John Cho — were not aware that an announcement for another film was coming, much less that their clients would be touted as a part of the deal, and certainly not that their clients would be shooting a movie by year’s end.”
By April of 2022 a number of the actors made it clear Kit’s report was more than just rumor. Quinto told The Hollywood Reporter, “I don’t know that we will do it this year. I don’t know when it will happen. And I always maintain that I would love to do it.”
He added, “But until I get something concrete — ‘We’re shooting this day, here’s your script, get ready’ — I’m in a wait and see pattern. I’m not really attached to it in any way until I have much more definitive certainty that it’s actually happening.”
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Before Quinto, Urban, who played Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, told Variety, “I haven’t seen a script, I know nothing. But I would love to work with those guys again, so much fun, the best hang. We’ll see.”
Chris Pine, who played Captain Kirk, revealed to IndieWire he had yet to see a script, “I know there’s a script out there somewhere and I’m waiting to see it.”
“Looking forward to reading it. I love the group. I love the team. I love the world. Happy to go to work,” he added.
As for what is causing the film to be stuck in production hell, TrekMovie reported that Quinto attended a Q&A session at the 57-year Mission convention in Las Vegas where he said, “I think there’s a lot of other stuff, creative things. It’s complicated. The fact that anything good gets made is kind of miracle. I think it’s about different people having different agendas and ideas about what it will be. And I don’t know if and when it will happen…”
He added, “And if coalesces again and we come back and we’re able to do it, wonderful. If not, we had a great run.”
RELATED: Simon Pegg On Star Trek: “We’ve Lost Momentum”
Interestingly, even before the announcement of the fourth film, actor Simon Pegg told Games Radar in 2020 that he believed the entire production had lost momentum due to the death of Anton Yelchin, who played Pavel Chekov.
He said, “We’ve lost momentum. I think losing Anton [Yelchin] was a huge blow to our little family, and our enthusiasm to do another one might have been affected by that. So I don’t know.”
Pegg also pointed to the economics of Star Trek films comparing them to Marvel films, “The fact is, Star Trek movies don’t make Marvel money. They make maybe $500m at the most, and to make one now, on the scale they’ve set themselves, is $200m. You have to make three times that to make a profit.”
Not only did he point to the economics of the films, but he also noted there were problems with how the studio marketed Star Trek Beyond, the most recent Kelvin timeline film, “I don’t feel like the last one… They didn’t really take advantage of the 50th anniversary. The regimen at the time dropped the ball on the promo of the film.”
What do you make of Quinto’s explanation for why the fourth film has been stuck in development hell?