Simon Pegg is no longer sure that a Star Trek 4 will be moving forward. The actor, who played the engineer Scotty in the rebooted franchise from J.J. Abrams, said that their movie has lost its momentum especially after Marvel's astronomical blockbuster hits with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Speaking with Games Radar while promoting his latest movie Lost Transmission, Pegg said that Star Trek made just $500 million at the box office in their last outing in 2016. He said that they need to make three times higher than their last number this time around to make a profit for a genre movie, just like Marvel successfully did in the last few years.
Pegg also said that Star Trek lost its momentum after they death of Anton Yelchin. Personally, the actor thinks that everyone from the cast and crew felt a huge blow after the young star's death that it affected their enthusiasm for doing Star Trek 4.
In the planned Star Trek 4, Chris Hemsworth was supposed to reprise his role as George Kirk from the 2009 movie, while Chris Pine as James T. Kirk would have finally met his dad through a time traveller. However, talks fell through between the actors and the studio over their talent fees and there has been little development since then.
Pegg also shared that he doesn't know anything about the planned Star Trek movie being developed with Noah Hawley. There are still no feelers for him to reprise his role as Scotty. In January, Deadline reported that Hawley will be tacklingthe franchise after he's done with fourth season of Fargo, which will air on FX in the fall.
Hawley hinted that his Star Trek film could be a reboot and that the current franchise's cast might not be part of the new production. However, there have also been reports that Hawley is clashing with the studio over the potential casting changes.
Meanwhile, Hawley also said that there is no mandate for him to connect his Star Trek with the current Star Trek shows on television, such as Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. The writer and director said that he has his own story in mind for the franchise, with respects to the underlying material and the fans who are passionate about Star Trek.
