Star Trek sequel: Talks begin with Chris Pine to reprise Captain Kirk role

Although Paramount is obviously keen to develop another Star Trek movie, it was never clear if we’d get to see the J.J. Abrams cast again following the release of Star Trek: Beyond. Deadline has reported that the studio is hoping to start production on the new Star Trek sequel by the end of the year and that they’ve begun talks with Chris Pine to reprise his role of Captain James T. Kirk.

It was announced last year that the Star Trek sequel would be helmed by WandaVision director Matt Shakman. He’s also been supervising a draft by Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires, based off a draft by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Paramount has the movie slated for a December 2024 release. Although Paramount is just in talks with Chris Pine at the moment, Deadline says that the intention is to bring back the rest of the Abrams cast as well, including Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Karl Urban as McCoy, John Cho as Sulu, and Simon Pegg as Scotty. As fun as it will be to have this cast return for at least one more adventure, it will be a little bittersweet as the late Anton Yelchin obviously won’t be returning as Chekov. He’ll certainly be missed. In a statement, J.J. Abrams said:

We are thrilled to say that we are hard at work on a new ‘Star Trek’ film that will be shooting by the end of the year that will be featuring our original cast and some new characters that I think are going to be really fun and exciting and help take ‘Star Trek’ into areas that you’ve just never seen before. We’re thrilled about this film, we have a bunch of other stories that we’re talking about that we think will be really exciting so can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper.

There have been more than a few potential Star Trek movies on the drawing board since the release of Star Trek: Beyond, but none seemed to come together. One of the previous projects was based on an idea by Quentin Tarantino and written by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant). Noah Hawley (Fargo) was also developing another Star Trek project, but said in 2020 that Paramount had put the film on hold. It was also reported last March that Star Trek: Discovery‘s Kalinda Vazquez was penning the script for new Star Trek movie based on an original idea.