Chris Pine Still Has No Idea What’s Going On With Star Trek 4

Chris Pine is still in the dark about the upcoming Star Trek 4, in which he is expected to return as James T. Kirk. At Paramount’s recent investor day presentation, Star Trek producer JJ Abrams stated that the cast of the 2009 Star Trek movie and its sequels, Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond, would return for the upcoming fourth installment of the series. Though a seemingly exciting and almost obvious statement on its face, the announcement may have had certain repercussions as the cast has not officially signed on yet and contract negotiations have derailed attempts to a fourth movie with this cast into production in the past. Reports suggest that the news caught the cast by surprise, and Pine backs that notion up with recent comments to IndieWire while promoting his upcoming thriller All the Old Knives.

“Well, what’s going on with Star Trek is frankly, I don’t know,” Pine said. “When the announcement was made at the shareholders’ thing, I didn’t know that they were doing that. I don’t think anybody did.”

WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman is slated to helm Star Trek 4. While Pine hasn’t seen a script, he has met with Shakman and spoke highly of the director. 

“I met Matt Shakman, the director,” Pine said. “He’s a super-cool guy, very smart, I like him a great deal. I know there’s a script out there somewhere and I’m waiting to see it. Looking forward to reading it. I love the group. I love the team. I love the world. Happy to go to work.”

The comments aren’t far off from Pine’s previous comments about the unexpected announcement of his return. “I think everybody was like, ‘Did you hear about this?’ We’re usually the last people to find out, but I do know we’re all excited,” Pine said. “Whenever they want to send us a script, we’re ready for it. We haven’t seen a script. I don’t know anything about it.” 

Pine’s co-star, Karl Urban, expressed similar surprise recently and even suggested his commitment to The Boys might create scheduling problems. “I haven’t seen a script, I know nothing,” Urban told Variety. “But I would love to work with those guys again, so much fun, the best hang. We’ll see.”

Star Trek 4 is scheduled to open in theaters on December 22, 2023.