Paramount Over ‘Star Trek’ Kelvin Timeline, Wants New Film With No Connection To J.J. Abrams Reboot
After eight years on hiatus and another being jerked around by the whims of scrambling executives, a new report suggests the Star Trek Kevlin Timeline is officially dead in the water, as Paramount wants to move the franchise away from having anything to do with J.J. Abrams’ lens flare-heavy trilogy.
The reboot film series’ apparent scrapping was first reported by Variety’s Tatiana Siegel, Brent Lang, and Matt Donnelly as part of their deep dive into newly appointed Paramount CEO David Ellison’s “dramatic first 100 days” at the head of the studio.
Following a look over the internal division caused by Ellison’s more politically-charged operating decisions, such as throwing the company’s support behind the Israeli government and cozying up to President Trump to the tune of a public demand for Warner Bros. Discovery to be sold to Paramount Skydance, the report turned to how “Despite the disagreements over strategy, there is a shared sense of urgency around the need to fundamentally transform Paramount”.
Going through the studio’s current production plans, the Variety team eventually came to Star Trek and relayed that, per their insider sources, “The hope is to have a fresh Star Trek movie, though the studio has moved on from the idea of bringing back Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and the rest of the ensemble from the J.J. Abrams reboot.”
Sadly, despite the surprising ‘fun’ factor of the Kelvin Timeline, fans have long surmised that the cinematic series was always headed for such an unceremonious end.
After its first trilogy wrapped with 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond, the aforementioned Abrams immediately followed its release by confirming that he was already at work on a Star Trek 4, which would involve the return of George Kirk, as played by Chris Hemsworth, who was thought dead at the end of the first film.
But rather than a quick and easy production, the USS Enterprise’s next adventure would spend the next six years in development hell, thrown between various writers and directors, including Alien: Earth director Noah Hawley and Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ Matt Shakman, but never moving any further.
Then, during a February 2022 Paramount investor relations day presentation, Abrams suddenly announced that Star Trek 4 would see the return of the franchise’s main cast – an update that came as a shock to the actors themselves, none of whom had even begun negotiations for a possible return.
Another two years of development hell later, Paramount would confirm a January 2024 report from Variety‘s Michaela Zee regarding their separate decision to make a Kelvin Timeline prequel film – that would be the last anyone would hear of the Star Trek reboot line until now.
At present, Paramount has not confirmed any specific plans for the Star Trek IP.
(But luckily for them, given the quality of Discovery, they have nowhere to go but up.)
