Following the massive box-office success of ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ not to mention his upcoming blockbuster ‘Men In Black: International‘ for Sony, Chris Hemsworth has a lot of movie offers coming his way. For fans of ‘Star Trek,’ one such offer that he recently turned down might seem a bit perplexing, especially since he seems so keen on big franchises, yet it has been reported that Hemsworth turned down an offer to return for ‘Star Trek 4,’ which was yet another blow for the struggling film which is also in contract disputes with star Chris Pine, and is being shelved until they can figure out how to proceed.
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The choice to not reprise his role as George Kirk, the father of famed USS Enterpise Captain James T. Kirk in the franchise (a role he played in the JJ Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ which rebooted the franchise back in 2009), may seem surprising to many, but not to those who know that Hemsworth has not gotten where he is now by not considering his options and trying to ensure he is making the right choices for both his career and the films he is set to appear in. According to a recent interview with Variety, Hemsworth said:
“I didn’t feel like we landed on a reason to revisit that yet. I didn’t want to be underwhelmed by what I was going to bring to the table.”
To bring back George Kirk meant the script for ‘Star Trek 4’ was going to either need to resurrect the character from the dead (not unheard of in ‘Trek’ movies), or feature more time-travel, which was the device used to reboot the series in Abram’s original ‘Star Trek’ outing. For Hemsworth to say no, and claim the script did not deliver a good enough reason to bring back George, speaks volumes about the state of the current ‘Star Trek’ movies. The man is a bonafide superstar nowadays after his many Marvel movies as Thor, and to bring back his character would be a definite boon for the ‘Trek’ franchise, but it does little to help Helmsworth’s career if there is not an adequate story and a decent script to go along with it.
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Still, all is not lost as Hemsworth does not seem opposed to the idea of returning one day, he just wants to ensure it is the right time, right movie, right script, which makes sense for a man who worked so hard to attain the stardom he has now (he started his career in a soap-opera back in Australia). Of course, this clearly means that Paramount is going to have to invest some more time and money developing ‘Star Trek 4,’ which seems a little sad considering that they already had a director lined up in SJ Clarkson, and another movie idea in the works with Quentin Tarantino before contract disputes with Pine shelved the latest installment.
What are your thoughts on Hemsworth boldly returning to the franchise? Can you think of a legitimate way to bring him back that would not feel shoehorned in as an excuse to bring a big movie star back into the fold? Do you think ‘Star Trek’ in its current form has enough life to survive and produce another sequel, especially after the mixed reviews from the first two sequels? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!
