Star Trek's future on TV might be up in the air, but at least there's some good news on the film side. Paramount confirmed at CinemaCon that a new Star Trek movie is in development.
Paramount CEO David Ellison took the stage to share his love of cinema and reaffirm the company's plan to release 30 feature films per year once the Warner Bros. merger closes. Paramount Pictures co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein followed him up and rattled off several franchise films currently in the works, Star Trek among them.
Unfortunately, no additional details were shared about the project. While other announcements came with at least some specifics, like the Call of Duty adaptation getting a release date; but, the Star Trek film got nothing but a brief mention.
Back in November, it was reported that Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the writers behind Spider-Man: Homecoming and directors of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, were set to write, direct, and produce a new Star Trek movie. Sources described it as "a completely new take on the Star Trek universe," with no connection to any existing series or prior development projects. Based on what we've heard, it was shaping up to be a full reset for the franchise on the big screen, with Paramount apparently ready to move on from the Kelvin timeline films that starred Chris Pine as Captain Kirk.
The problem is there have been basically no updates on Goldstein and Daley's project since then. The CinemaCon mention doesn't necessarily confirm that this is the project moving forward, and it's entirely possible that what Paramount confirmed is something different altogether.
Star Trek is in the midst of celebrating its 60th anniversary, but it hasn't been the smoothest year for the franchise. Starfleet Academy flopped and got cancelled, with only its already-filmed second season still set to air.
And Strange New Worlds, while solid, is wrapping up after season five, which has also already been filmed even though season four hasn't premiered yet. For the first time in about a decade, there are no new Star Trek TV shows in production or even greenlit. There was talk of a possible Strange New Worlds spin-off, titled Year One, that would follow Paul Wesley's James Kirk during his first year as Captain of the Enterprise, but it appears that idea is now dead seeing as how CBS and Paramount have torn down the sets of Strange New Worlds.
So the movie news is something, at least.