New Star Trek Movie Happening With Andor Director

The Star Trek franchise is about to boldly go back onto the big screen. On Wednesday, reports confirmed that Paramount is working on a brand-new film expanding the Star Trek universe, which will be written by Just Beyond's Seth Grahame-Smith and directed by Star Wars: Andor's Toby Haynes. Although the new film is being produced by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company, reports state that the project is "an origin story" set decades prior to the events of Bad Robot's Star Trek trilogy. Haynes, coincidentally, directed the fan-favorite 2018 Black Mirror episode "USS Callister", which heavily parodied Star Trek and other sci-fi franchises.

The long-awaited Star Trek 4, which would reunite the cast of the "Kelvin timeline" of Bad Robot's movies including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana, is reportedly still in the works as well and remains in active development. This comes after Pine told ComicBook.com late last year that he had not heard of any updates on the film. 

Is Star Trek 4 in the Works?

Star Trek 4 has been in the works for several years now, with a script from Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires, working off of a draft from Lindsey Anderson Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet. 

"I wrote a couple drafts of that before I had to leave for Pet Sematary. And it was originally, the seed of the idea came from J.J. himself, who's such a creatively generous person, and it was amazing collaborating with him," Anderson Beer shared with ComicBook.com of leaving Star Trek 4. "And it was very sad to leave our Zoom sessions to focus on [Pet Sematary: Bloodlines], but this was my baby, so I had to prioritize."

Who Will Direct Star Trek 4?

WandaVision's Matt Shakman was originally set to direct Star Trek 4, before passing on the project in order to helm Marvel's Fantastic Four reboot. At the time of this writing, a new director for Star Trek 4 has yet to be set.

"I had a great time working on 'Star Trek' for a little over a year, working closely with J.J. Abrams and everyone at Paramount, and I love that franchise, and I love that cast that J.J. put together, and it would have been an unbelievable pleasure to work with them on the fourth installment there," Shakman revealed in an interview with The Wrap last year. "But movies have different journeys and momentums and and schedules are a little bit mercurial, and so when the 'Fantastic Four' opportunity came up, it was just too hard to pass up, and to go back home to Marvel, a place that I worked on 'WandaVision' at, with those people who are wonderful collaborators. It's really a family there and to be able to go back and tackle something that I truly love, and they're very similar in some ways: they both were launched in the '60s at the same time, they're both about optimism and looking to the stars and technology can solve everything and they're about family too — the family you have, the family you make. So they're aligned in many ways and speak to my heart and equally, so I'm excited to be working on 'Fantastic Four.'"

What do you think of the first updates surrounding a new Star Trek film? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

h/t: Deadline