Star Trek 4 Loses Director

The Marvel Cinematic Universe came knocking and director Matt Shaman answered.  The director was supposed to direct Star Trek 4 at some point in the near future but has now in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Paramount Pictures in a statement, “Matt Shakman is an incredibly talented filmmaker, and we regret the timing didn’t align for him to direct our upcoming Star Trek film. We are grateful for his many contributions, are excited about the creative vision of this next chapter and look forward to bringing it to audiences all around world.”

The decision to move on, probably outside of a significant payday, is probably fueled by Marvel doing a good job of hitting its release dates, in this case November 8, 2024, and providing the budget to make the film as the director envisions. Meanwhile Star Trek 4 remains penciled in for a December 22, 2023 date and supposedly there is a script by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet but even the cast is in the dark on the script and the schedule. To my knowledge none of the casts have signed any contracts for the film so technically there is no cast at this time.

On paper, the film has about 10 months to go through pre-production and production and still allow enough time to finish post production. However they do not seem to have a director, signed actors, finished script and a schedule. All this can be fixed with money, but that is something Paramount is not going to want to do. The budget likely remains a significant problem as the previous movies just did ok so I suspect they are aiming for $120 range before tax breaks. 

Ultimately this news means that chances are Shakman was clashing with Paramount on the film, moved on, and any chance of hitting the 2023 release date went with him. I suspect we are getting closer to Paramount abandoning the Kelvin universe and turning the reigns over to Alex Kurtzman (who co-created the Kelvin version) to create a film set in the current prime continuity, assuming the current contract with JJ Abrams' allows it.