FEBRUARY 16, 2022 - It’s been nearly six years since Star Trek Beyond was released. In that time, fans have repeatedly gotten their hopes up, and then had them dashed as film concepts by such creatives as Noah Hawley and Quentin Tarantino have been leaked and then abandoned.

We reported back in November that the next film in the franchise, orginally set to premier in June 2023 had been pushed back to December of that year. Since then, there has been speculation about whether the film would feature an already-established crew or a new one and whether it would be set in the Prime universe or the Kelvin timeline. It seems we now have our answer.

As reported by Variety, JJ Abrams announced at Tuesday’s Paramount Investors Day Presentation that negotiations were in the works with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban and Simon Pegg, the Kelvin timeline crew, to return to the franchise.

For the uninitiated, the Star Trek universe that has been dubbed the “Kelvin timeline” is a parallel version of the 23rd century’s Star Trek: The Original Series. In the film Star Trek (2009), a Romulan named Nero travelled back in time from the 24th century in order to destroy the planet Vulcan. Upon his arrival in the past, he destroyed the USS Kelvin, with James Kirk’s father aboard. This created a new universe, allowing Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, to craft new stories set in the 23rd century, with younger actors taking over the roles established by William Shatner and the rest of the TOS cast.

After Beyond, which lost money for Paramount, there had been talk of a fourth film, featuring a meeting between the now-adult Kirk (Pine) and his deceased father (Chris Hemsworth), but that film never happened, reportedly because Paramount couldn’t make a deal with Pine and Hemsworth. Since then, however, Paramount has done some market research and found that audience enthusiasm for the Kelvin films is still high, making the studio feel comfortable about bringing the cast back for a fourth outing.

The film, which Abrams said “will be featuring our original cast and some new characters that I think are going to be really fun and exciting,” is currently untitled and the plot is being kept under wraps, but we do know that Abrams is producing it through Bad Robot and Wandvision’s Matt Shakman is directing, with scribes Josh Friedman (Avatar 2) and Cameron Squires (Wandavision) writing the script, based on an earlier draft by Lindsay Beer (Sierra Burgess Is a Loser) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel).

It will be interesting to see if they can stay on track for a December 2023 opening. The cast members haven’t exactly been cooling their heels since the last film. Pine has continued his film work with the Wonder Woman franchise and is set to appear in two more films, Don’t Worry, Darling and Violence in Action. Quinto has been on TV, headlining the AMC series NOS4A2, plus he’s done a stint on Broadway in the revival of The Boys in the Band. The story’s the same for the rest of the cast, with Saldana playing Gamora in several Marvel films and returning to her role as Neytiri in the upcoming Avatar 2, Urban continuing to appear as Billy Butcher in Amazon’s The Boys, Cho lending his talent to Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop and Pegg going on one final impossible mission with Tom Cruise in…well…Mission Impossible 7.

Sadly, there will be one empty chair at the Trek reunion, that of Anton Yelchin, who was tragically killed in an accident one month before Beyond opened. The film’s end credits pause briefly with a dedication to Yelchin and Leonard Nimoy, who died before the film went into production. The tribute, which consists of two cards, reads: “In loving memory of Leonard Nimoy.” and “For Anton.”

Wrapping up his remarks about the new film at yesterday’s presentation, Abrams said, “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’s cooking. Live long and prosper.”

Stay tuned to Daily Star Trek News for all the latest developments regarding the next Star Trek movie.