“You know as much as I do, my friend,” Karl Urban tells ScreenCrush when asked for an update on the next Star Trek movie.
“Listen, we’d all love to make another Star Trek movie. That’s absolutely certain. But if we don’t get that opportunity then I’m really happy to have ended on such a good note. We had such a wonderful time shooting ‘Star Trek Beyond.’”
Why no director or start date or contract for Urban more than a year after the release of “Beyond”?
My guess is Paramount is nervous about the scripts it’s been getting and doesn’t trust the execs who greenlit “Beyond” to pick a winner.
If one judges by number of tickets sold, last year’s “Star Trek Beyond” finished among the six least popular of the 13 Trek movies (domestic grosses adjusted for inflation):
$307,131,900 Star Trek (2009)
$291,345,700 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
$256,653,900 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
$242,701,900 Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
$238,617,800 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
$202,329,700 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
$184,390,900 Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
$165,920,500 Star Trek Beyond (2016)
$160,423,200 Star Trek: Generations (1994)
$159,093,100 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
$130,671,400 Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
$116,913,700 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
.$65,432,900 Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
In July 2016 Paramount revealed the sequel to “Star Trek Beyond” would be written by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. (In collaboration with “Star Trek Into Darkness” screenwriter Roberto Orci, Payne and McKay many years ago wrote a sequel to “Star Trek Into Darkness” that was scrapped and replaced by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung’s script for what became “Star Trek Beyond.”)
The following December Pegg tweeted a photo of the “Star Trek Beyond” screenwriting team – Pegg and Jung – staring into laptops with a Bad Robot action figure lurking nearby. Lest we surmise this was a 3-year-old image, Pegg added the message “Today …” If Pegg and Jung weren’t writing or rewriting a Trek movie 10 months ago, then what was that all about?
Chris Hemsworth, who played James Kirk’s dad in the most popular Star Trek movie ever, was last year signed to reprise the role of George Samuel Kirk. Chris Pine and Zach Quinto were also long ago contracted for a movie set beyond “Beyond.”
Find all of ScreenCrush’s story on the matter here.
