Fans celebrated wildly when it was confirmed after years of speculation that Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Karl Urban, and Simon Pegg would be slipping back into their Starfleet uniforms to headline the fourth installment in the rebooted Kelvin timeline.
WandaVision‘s Matt Shakman will direct, and production was touted to begin before the end of this year, in order to meet the previously-announced December 2023 release date. The fact the announcement came with comments from J.J. Abrams would appear to indicate that all of the key players are locked and loaded, but that isn’t the case.
As per The Hollywood Reporter, not only were the principal cast completely unaware that the big Star Trek 4 news was incoming, but they had absolutely no idea they’d be on set filming it before 2022 is out. On top of that, none of them have signed contracts as of yet, with main man Chris Pine the first to enter talks.
If that still wasn’t enough, Paramount hasn’t received a completed script, settled on a budget, or even given the sci-fi blockbuster the green light to start ramping up towards getting in front of cameras, so it certainly sounds as though the gun was significantly jumped.
The report even goes on to say that the cast will be able to leverage the studio for increased pay packages after being announced for a movie they haven’t inked contracts for, one that falls apart at the seams without their involvement, so the costs of Star Trek 4 could prove to be astronomical.