In the age of major franchises seeing massive expansion in the cinematic landscape, Star Trek has generally been falling behind. The rebooted version of the classic television franchise hasn’t had a feature film since 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. Since then, Star Trek has leaned much more heavily into various streaming series on Paramount+ to continue its legacy.
There have been attempts to get a new film off the ground for a while, but Paramount has struggled to find a director to stay attached to the project. After various directors had come and gone during early development of Star Trek 4, some ground was thought to have been made with the hiring of Matt Shakman to helm the project. However, his hiring to Fantastic Four in 2022 forced him to relinquish the position and placed Paramount back at square one. However, a new rumor seems to suggest a returning name may be coming back to recalibrate the film series.
Of course, this very much remains a rumor at this time and shouldn’t be taken as any sort of decision set in stone. However, the potential of J.J. Abrams returning to the director’s chair would be compelling. Abrams was a major name in the creation of this iteration of Star Trek by directing the first two films (Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, respectively). A return from the famous director and producer would procure many questions about where he’d take the franchise. It would also mark J.J. Abrams‘ first foray back into directing following the generally maligned Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Another major factor that needs to be considered is the status of a script. It had been announced that Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet were working on a script when Matt Shakman was hired to direct in July 2021, but little has been heard since then. With nothing set in stone, it remains to be seen if a new writer – or writers – are brought on to assist the new director, whether it ends up being Abrams or not.
