Paramount announces a ‘Star Trek’ prequel, Toby Haynes of ‘Andor’ to direct

Deadline has reported that Paramount announced a new “Star Trek” prequel film to be directed by ‘Andor’ director Toby Haynes and written by writer-producer Seth Grahame-Smith.

Additionally, J.J. Abrams, known in the franchise for directing both “Star Trek” (2009) and “Star Trek Into Darkness,” will have his production company, “Bad Robot,” produce the movie.

What do we know about the ‘Star Trek’ origin movie?

Per Deadline, the studio revealed the plot will revolve around a story “decades before the 2009 ‘Star Trek’ film that rebooted the franchise” — as essentially, an origin expansion to Gene Roddenberry’s creation.

However, according to an article by Indiewire, it’s unknown what timeline the film will be set in, whether that be in the main continuity or, as referred to by fans of Star Trek, the “Kelvin Timeline,” which is a parallel, but alternate timeline established from J.J. Abrams’ films.

Still, this project will focus on a never-before-seen perspective of the franchise.

Are they making a ‘Star Trek’ 4?

Since the 2016 release of the third installment, “Star Trek Beyond,” there has not been another movie of the franchise since — although there have been a couple of attempts.

Notably, Quentin Tarantino was approached by Paramount in 2018 to direct a separate film to the franchise, according to MovieWeb. Tarantino reportedly liked the idea of pitching a new story for the franchise, and he pitched an idea based on the episode, “A Piece of the Action,” from “Star Trek: The Original Series.”

However, Tarantino dropped out of the project by the end of 2019 due to not wanting to end his career on an adaptation, also according to MovieWeb.

Close to the end of 2019, Noah Hawley was hired on to “write and direct” the next film for the franchise, but was halted from continuing the project in mid-2020 after some managerial changes, per Variety.

According to Entertainment Weekly, “Star Trek 4” was once again announced in 2022. Yet despite the hopeful announcement, it’s mentioned that what would be the fourth installment to Abrams’ film series has yet to find a director, as “Wandavision” director Matt Shakman, being set to direct the film, dropped out for other projects.

Additionally, the film announced two years ago has gone through several iterations of what the story could actually be, including one of Kirk, portrayed by Chris Pine, “traveling back in time and teaming up with his father, played by Chris Hemsworth,” per The Wrap.

The finale to Abrams’ timeline has become more complicated with the 2016 death of Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the rebooted series, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Despite the challenges of making the fourth film, it’s still in the works by Paramount and described to be the “final chapter” of the rebooted film series, according to Variety.

How many ‘Star Trek’ TV shows are there?

Although it’s taken a long time for the films to be released, there have been multiple shows that have premiered in the meantime. Starting back in 2017, six television shows have released at least one season: “Discovery,” “Short Treks,” “Picard,” “Lower Decks,” “Prodigy” and most recently, “Strange New Worlds” — with one more show in development called “Starfleet Academy,” according to Variety.

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