Development of Star Trek 4
Star Trek 4 was the working title of an unproduced American science fiction film in development at Paramount Pictures based on the television series Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. It was intended to be part of the Star Trek film franchise and was originally announced as the fourth installment of the franchise's reboot films following Star Trek Beyond. There were several iterations of the film in development with different filmmakers between 2015 and 2025, alongside alternate attempts to continue the film franchise.
Development of a direct sequel to Beyond was revealed before the release of that film, with J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay writing. In December 2017, Quentin Tarantino pitched his own idea for a new Star Trek film to producer J. J. Abrams. Development began separately from the Beyond sequel, but the film did not move forward when Tarantino decided not to direct it. S. J. Clarkson was hired to direct the Beyond sequel in April 2018, but it was canceled when stars Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth exited. Noah Hawley was hired in November 2019 to write and direct a Star Trek film that would take the franchise in a new direction. It entered pre-production, but this was placed on hold by new Paramount executives who reassessed the franchise and chose not to continue with Hawley's version.
Kalinda Vazquez was writing a new film in March 2021. Matt Shakman was hired in July to direct another version, written by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires also contributed to the script. Pre-production for this version was placed on hold when Shakman left to direct The Fantastic Four: First Steps instead. By 2024, Paramount was developing multiple Star Trek films, including Star Trek 4—with a new script by Steve Yockey—and a franchise "origin story" film to be directed by Toby Haynes and written by Seth Grahame-Smith. Star Trek 4 was described as the "final chapter" of the main reboot film series. Work on both films stalled amid the merger of Skydance Media and Paramount Global, which led to Star Trek 4 being canceled. In November 2025, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley were hired to make a new film.
Background
Shortly before production began on Star Trek Beyond—the third of the Star Trek franchise's reboot films after Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness —in June 2015, Paramount Pictures completed last-minute contract re-negotiations with the main cast members of the reboot films. This gave the actors pay raises while signing Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto to return for a fourth film in their respective roles as James T. Kirk and Spock. That November, CBS announced the first new Star Trek television series since Star Trek: Enterprise, from executive producer Alex Kurtzman who co-wrote the first two reboot films. Titled Star Trek: Discovery, the series was set in the franchise's original "Prime Timeline" to keep it separate from the "Kelvin Timeline" of the reboot films. It led to Kurtzman signing a deal with CBS to expand the franchise beyond Discovery to several new series, miniseries, and animated series.While promoting Beyond on July 15, 2016, producer J. J. Abrams said the fourth film would co-star Chris Hemsworth, reprising his role as James Kirk's father George from the first reboot film's prologue. Abrams added that the role of Pavel Chekov would not be recast following the death of actor Anton Yelchin a month earlier. On July 18, Paramount Pictures officially announced the next film with the temporary title Star Trek 4 and confirmed the return of Hemsworth, Pine, and most of Beyond cast. J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay were hired to write the film after doing uncredited writing work on Beyond. Bad Robot's Abrams and Lindsey Weber returned as producers, with David Ellison and Dana Goldberg of Skydance Media as executive producers.
While making a guest appearance on The Nerdist Podcast in December 2015, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino expressed interest in making a Star Trek film. He said he was a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series and Abrams's 2009 reboot film, and felt many classic Star Trek episodes could easily be expanded into a feature film; he gave the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" as an example. In September 2017, after a clip of this discussion resurfaced on YouTube, Tarantino was asked about directing a Star Trek film and said "it would be worth having a meeting about". He noted that he planned to retire after directing ten films and had already made eight. Pine and Quinto separately stated earlier in 2017 that they had not heard any updates about a new Star Trek film other than it was being written. Karl Urban, who portrays Leonard McCoy in the reboot films, reiterated this in September and expressed interest in having the fourth film introduce McCoy's ex-wife and daughter. That December, Tarantino approached Abrams and Paramount about an idea he had for a new Star Trek film and development on the project began at the studio. At CinemaCon in April 2018, Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos said the Beyond sequel and Tarantino's proposed film were both in development.
In August 2019, Paramount's parent company Viacom announced that it was merging with CBS after the two companies split in 2006, bringing the film and television sides of the Star Trek franchise under the control of one company, ViacomCBS, for the first time since the split. This led to speculation about what impacts the merger would have on the ongoing development of new feature films and television series for the franchise.
Quentin Tarantino
Tarantino's story was based on the Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action", which is set on an alien planet with an "Earth-like 1920s gangster culture". A few days after the project was revealed, Tarantino and Abrams convened a writers' room consisting of Mark L. Smith, Lindsey Beer, Drew Pearce, and Megan Amram to begin developing the idea into a film. One of the group would be chosen to write the screenplay while Tarantino focused on his ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ; Smith was considered to be the frontrunner. In their initial discussions with the director, Abrams and Paramount agreed that the film could receive an R-rating like Tarantino's previous films, which would have made it the first R-rated Star Trek film.Smith was officially hired to write the screenplay by the end of December and Tarantino was considering directing the film. Paramount president Wyck Godfrey gave the project as an example of how the studio was rejuvenating its existing franchises, believing that "people's eyes light up" at the thought of Tarantino joining the Star Trek franchise. Previous Star Trek actors Patrick Stewart and William Shatner both expressed interest in returning to the franchise to work with Tarantino on the film after they previously portrayed Jean-Luc Picard in The Next Generation and James T. Kirk in The Original Series, respectively. Quinto assumed that the cast of the reboot films would be starring in Tarantino's film, as did Simon Pegg who portrays Montgomery Scott in the reboot films. In April 2018, Tarantino's film was reported to be set in a different timeline from the reboot films' Kelvin Timeline, and had the potential to be another reboot of the franchise.
Tarantino confirmed in May 2019 that his Star Trek film was still in development, explaining that the script had been written and he would return to the project following the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood that July. A month later, he said he would be giving notes on the script and confirmed that the film would be rated R. In July, Tarantino said he had read Smith's script and liked it, but there were elements that he wanted to work on. He described the film as "Pulp Fiction in space", referring to his own 1994 film. He also said that he was a fan of Pine's and Quinto's performances in the reboot films and wanted them to star in his film, but he wanted his story to be a direct prequel to the original Star Trek series rather than be set in the alternate Kelvin Timeline; when discussing the franchise's different timelines with Abrams, Tarantino said, "I don't understand this, I don't like it", and Abrams encouraged him to ignore them completely.
When asked how a Star Trek film would fit into his ten film plan, Tarantino acknowledged that he could use a loophole by saying "Star Trek doesn't count" and then make a tenth original film, but suggested that he would rather commit to making ten films whether one was part of the Star Trek franchise or not. In December 2019, Tarantino said he was "steering away" from directing the film but had made no official decision. A month later, he confirmed that he was not going to direct the film. He did think it was a good idea for a Star Trek film and suggested that it still be made, offering to give notes on the first cut. Smith later compared his script to the film Thor: Ragnarok and felt it would have brought a new tone and feeling to the Star Trek franchise in a similar way to what that film did for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Smith also explained that the film's R-rating would have primarily come from violence and tone rather than language, as the script only used profanity a few times for "special characters to kind of drop that into the Star Trek world".
S. J. Clarkson
entered talks to direct the Beyond sequel in April 2018. Abrams and Paramount held an extensive search for a female director, and Clarkson would have been the first woman to direct a Star Trek film. Payne and McKay had completed the screenplay, but Paramount had yet to sign new contracts for the main cast outside of Pine and Quinto, including Urban, Pegg, John Cho, and Zoe Saldaña. After Clarkson joined the film, Quinto said the project was entering the "logistical kind of phase" and expressed excitement at working with the director again after they had worked together on the television series Heroes. In July 2018, Jennifer Morrison expressed interest in reprising her role as George Kirk's wife Winona from the first reboot film, and Danai Gurira was close to being cast in the film. Pegg met with Clarkson to discuss the project and expected production to begin in early 2019.Contract negotiations between Pine, Hemsworth, and the studios ended with Pine and Hemsworth leaving the film in August 2018. The pair had existing deals for the film after Pine had signed on in June 2015 and Hemsworth had been attached in July 2016, but Paramount and Skydance wanted to lower the budget for the film following the financial underperformance of Beyond and planned to decrease the actors' salaries as part of this. Development of the film was expected to continue without Pine and Hemsworth, as it was considered a priority project for the studios. Negotiations with Saldaña, Quinto, Urban, Pegg, and Cho had not yet begun by that point, as they had been waiting until talks with Pine and Hemsworth had been completed. At the end of the month, Urban said production for the film was expected to take place in the United Kingdom, where Clarkson is based, and that it was just waiting on negotiations with Pine and Hemsworth to resume. Pine stated a month later that he still wanted to make the film and said "we will see what happens". By January 2019, the film had been canceled and Clarkson moved on to other projects.
In May 2019, Hemsworth said he had turned down the film because he was underwhelmed by the script. Payne and McKay revealed in October 2022 that they had worked on the script for two-and-a-half years with Clarkson and Weber. Their story was inspired by the Next Generation episode "Relics" in which Montgomery Scott is discovered to be alive inside a transporter buffer many years after his presumed death. In Payne and McKay's script, the Enterprise crew explore the wreckage of the USS Kelvin from the first reboot film and discover that George Kirk saved a copy of himself before the ship exploded, allowing him to now interact with his son. The writers described the story as a father-son galactic adventure featuring a similar relationship to that between Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones and his father Henry, played by Sean Connery, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They said the film had an original villain and was based on a core science fiction idea inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey.