Star Trek 4: Original Time Travel Idea With Chris Hemsworth Reportedly Still on the Table

Paramount Pictures may not have abandoned the original idea for Star Trek 4. A report from Deadline suggests that getting the Star Trek movies back on track is a top priority for the studio, with significant decisions coming in the next few weeks. With Noah Hawley's idea put on pause and Quentin Tarantino dropping out of directing his pitch, Paramount's most apparent path may be to bring back the Star Trek Kelvin timeline crew and revisit Star Trek 4's original premise. The story would see Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) coming face-to-face with his father, George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth), through time travel.

Paramount first announced this version of Star Trek 4, with Hemsworth reprising the role of Kirk's father before Star Trek Beyond opened. Beyond's disappointing box office made Paramount pump the brakes, but the film went into pre-production with SJ Clarkson set to become the first woman to direct a Star Trek movie. The film stalled again when both Pine and Hemsworth dropped out of the project, and Clarkson later leaving for Game of Thrones.

Reports at the time suggested that the stars left over contract disputes. Hemsworth told a different story.

"I didn't feel like we landed on a reason to revisit that yet," Hemsworth said in 2019. "I didn't want to be underwhelmed by what I was going to bring to the table."

Pine has remained mostly silent on the situation. "I don't know, man," he said in 2018. "I'd love to be involved, and we'll see what happens. I'll await the phone call. Until then, I look forward to it."

Speaking to ComicBook.com, the Kelvin timeline's Spock, Zachary Quinto, said he hopes to return, but suggested that he'd made peace with the idea that Star Trek Beyond might be his crew's last Star Trek outing. "I stepped away from any expectation or any real certainty that it's ever going to happen again," he said. "I think that's the only real way to move through the world, right? If it happens, that'd be great, but I'm not going to sit around waiting for it to happen. I have a ton of other stuff in my life, in my career. I have lifelong friendships from those films and working relationships and a lot of respect and fond memories, so if that's what it ends up being and I can look back on my life and say that's what it was, then that's incredible, and if we get to do more, that's also incredible. But as far as the stories go, they've been around for decades and generations, and I think that that will continue, whether or not we continue on with them."