Simon Pegg and Thandie Newton in Star Trek
Paramount Pictures

Noah Hawley (‘Lucy in the Sky’) was announced as writing and directing a new ‘Star Trek’ movie in November.  For a while, Quentin Tarantino was in talks to direct a separate ‘Trek’ flick, but he has declared that he probably won’t, as he intends to only direct one more movie before retiring.  (He has stated that he would love for Paramount to make this movie, just without him directing.)  In 2018, S.J. Clarkson wrote a treatment, but that film was deemed too expensive, as it would have brought back Marvel star Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk, James’ father, who was shown briefly in the first ‘Star Trek’ movie in this iteration.  His salary + Chris Pines’ was too much to justify.

Simon Pegg, who portrays Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the movies, seems uncertain about the franchise’s future.  As he confessed, he is uncertain about the brand’s future on the big screen as he feels that not only has the public’s interest dwindled, but the cast’s as well, following the death of co-star Anton Yelchin (Chekov).

 

RELATED: A Fourth ‘Star Trek’ Movie Is Coming With Noah Hawley Set To Write And Direct

 

Speaking to Games Radar/Total Film, Pegg admitted:

“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.

 

“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. And 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.”

The first modern ‘Star Trek’ film arrived in 2009 and was directed by J.J. Abrams, who — lens flares aside — brought a renewed energy to the decades-old brand which pleased crowds.  The film made $385M worldwide.  Unfortunately, the sequels ‘Star Trek Into Darkness‘ and ‘Star Trek Beyond‘ proved to be less pleasing, although they still performed well financially.  (Unfortunately, they cost more to make, which cut into any profits.)

 

RELATED:  Nicholas Meyer Shares His Thoughts On ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

 

Perhaps like ‘Star Wars’, ‘Trek’s future lies in television, which is more fitting as that’s how ‘Trek’ began.  A pretty significant lineup of programs is available on CBS All Access with more coming soon.

Would you like to see another cinematic adventure with Pegg, Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and the rest of the crew?  Or was this a nice Trek while it lasted?