Zoë Saldaña wants to see Star Trek 4 happen soon and feels like it should have happened years ago. While Star Trek has remained consistently on the air through various television series on Paramount+, it has been eight years since the last Star Trek movie hit theaters, marking the longest gap in the franchise's film history. Star Trek 4 has had a lot of starts and stops since it was first announced in 2016. Many fans are wondering if and when the film will happen, a sentiment that seems to be shared by many of the stars.
In an interview with Deadline, Saldaña touched on the status of Star Trek 4. "I wish we were able to do it sooner rather than later," said Saldaña regarding the film's long development cycle. Saldaña jokingly said the cast of the 2009 reboot is starting to get too old to play the parts, saying, "I feel like a lot of us have a full head of gray hair, so we need to do this quickly, if this is the same cast that's going to reprise it again."
Saldaña herself is no stranger to waiting a long time between sequels. She reprised her role as Neytiri in Avatar: The Way of Water thirteen years after Avatar opened in theaters and will be back again in Avatar: Fire and Ash in December 2025. The gap in Star Trek movies though is so large that the actress has managed to pretty much play out her entire MCU career since Star Trek Beyond was released. Saldaña played the role of Gamora in four feature films since 2016: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Star Trek 4 is a Problem Close
The fact that the cast is getting older might be thematically appropriate for the franchise. While it feels like a shame that fans only got three films of the youthful Enterprise Crew prequel series, having the characters deal with their fears of aging and mortality would align the Kelvin Star Trek films with the themes of the original six Star Trek movies, which brought back the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series. There was a ten-year gap between Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with the gap between Star Trek: Beyond and Star Trek 4 getting close. Willam Shatner was 48 when he reprised his role as Captain Kirk for the first of many occasions, so at 44, Chris Pine still has plenty of Star Trek adventures left in him if he wants to. Same goes with Saldaña's Uhura, Zachary Quinto's Spock, and the rest of the cast.
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The real concern now is Paramount Pictures' struggles with getting Star Trek 4 off the ground. Despite numerous episodes of Star Trek that could be reworked into a great future film, it appears Star Trek 4 is difficult to crack. The news that the Kelvin Timeline cast would be returning was made in 2022 despite no script being written and no offers being made to the actors. Director Matt Shakman was initially set to helm the film but departed in favor of The Fantastic Four: First Steps and the film failed to meet its December 22, 2023, release date. While a 2026 release date for Star Trek 4 would be appropriate as it would be the franchise's 60th anniversary, at the rate it is going, it feels unlikely the movie will even have a script by then.
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Cast Chris Hemsworth , Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto , John Cho