Chris Pine Still Waiting To Find Out What’s Up With ‘Star Trek 4’; Salary Reported At $13 Million

It’s now been five months since Paramount dramatically announced they were moving forward with a fourth film set in the Kelvin Universe, which turned out to be a bit of a surprise to the cast. Over these last few months, the cast has continually spoken about how they are excited about getting back together, but some have expressed skepticism about being able to get it done in time for the December 2023 date scheduled by Paramount. The latest update arrived during Comic-Con from star Chris Pine.

Pine waits

Chris Pine was at Comic-Con to promote a different 2023 movie for Paramount Pictures, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. While he was in San Diego, Deadline had a chance to ask Pine about the Star Trek movie, and the actor repeated what he and others have been saying:

I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about it other than the news.

When asked if he was interested in returning to play Captain Kirk, Pine also was positive:

Yeah, of course, I am. If it happens, I think all of us would come back.

You can see the exchange here:

This message about a lack of knowledge about what’s going on but being happy to return has been a consistent theme for the cast since the February announcement. A couple of weeks ago, Pine told ExtraTV:

Star Trek, I would love to come back. We’re all looking forward to it. I don’t know much about it other than there is a script out there. I don’t know much about it but I am very excited to come back for [Star Trek].

Earlier in the year, Pine did reveal that he has met with Matt Shakman, whom producer J.J. Abrams tapped to helm the Star Trek film. He also said that he has talked to executives at Paramount about setting reasonable expectations, extolling them not to shoot for Marvel-level billion-dollar box office.

Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek Beyond

The Thirteen Millon Dollar Man

While Pine says he doesn’t know what’s going on, he does know something—specifically, how much Paramount has agreed to pay him to return. A few days ago, Variety reported on the salaries a number of top stars are being paid for current film projects, and Pine is reported to be signed for $13 million for the Star Trek sequel. Four years ago, when Paramount was in worse financial shape, a different sequel project (with different scriptwriters and director) fizzled out after salary renegotiations broke down with Pine. That project also was set to have Chris Hemsworth return to play George Kirk (James T. Kirk’s father), but he also balked during negotiations — which may be for the best, as Variety reports Hemsworth is set to get $20 million for his next project (Extraction 2).

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Keep up with all the news on Star Trek 4 and upcoming Trek films at TrekMovie.com.

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He’s not the only one….

I wonder if the positive noise SNW is making has given Paramount pause in moving ahead with another Kelvin movie. The market research the studio performed prior to announcing a 4th movie with the Kelvin cast was done before SNW came out. This isn’t a judgment over which version is better, just a bit of speculation about how Paramount might be reassessing its decision to make this potential, expensive movie. Pine’s salary alone could probably pay for most, if not all, of the SNW cast to do their own feature. Additionally, Paramount may be worried that another Kelvin movie might detract from SNW’s momentum (competing versions of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, etc). Whatever the reason, it feels like Paramount is hesitating to move ahead. I wouldn’t be shocked if this 4th Kelvin movie never happens.

That makes a lot of sense. Also, many of the actors don’t really need the work. Karl Urban has The Boys, Zoe Saldana has Avatar and Guardians, Chris Pine has D&D, and Simon Pegg has Mission and other stuff.

Honestly, SNW is doing very well. (although their Kirk is not as well liked as the others) But I bet Paramount is wondering if they even NEED another Kelvin movie. Unless they do a multi-verse crossover with Kelvin-verse and SNW? I wouldn’t like it, but it’s possible.

No. You’re funny though.

Nope

I agree. They may very well feel that streaming is where the Trek action is. BTW, I doubt that there will ever be a SNW movie (unless it’s something cheap and on Paramount+).

Given that, I can certainly see studio executives thinking that a new Kelvin movie would be, at best, a modest hit, and thus, not worth the money. ST films are never blockbusters (STII failed to make the top five in 1982 and even JJ Abrams 2009 movie could only hit number 7 on the list).

Of course the saturation of nonstop Trek shows affects the market for a Trekmovie, and all the more so with competing Spocks. Commenters wishing “nope nope nope” have no legs to stand on. And let’s not pretend the general public is clamoring for more Pegg Scotty and friends. If only though, if only my grandmother had wheels, then she’d be a skateboard.

Outside of N American TV markets SNW is not exactly well known or that popular! Kelvin movies are a known quantity though with international audiences….

I know for a fact that it’s blowing up in Germany.

I’m German and a show called “SNW” is unknown to me and to all I’m acquainted to.

Doubtful since the show isn’t available in Germany, yet. Strange New Worlds will be released in Germany when Paramount Plus expands to the country (and a few others in Europe) by the end of this year.
I’m sure some people will pirate the show but that’s a small minority.

Paramount has been hesitating on this since the release of Beyond. SNW’s is completely irrelevant to that fact.

Well, the first few years after BEYOND were wasted by Paramount arguing over Chris Pine’s fee- the studio wanted Pine to accept a lower-than-previously-agreed-upon number. And then the studio leadership shifted twice with new regimes within a short period of time. Within the last few months, Paramount settled again and decided (due to its own market research) that there was still an appetite for Kelvin movies- and they set a release date, etc. without even closing the deals with the cast. And since then, silence, according to Chris Pine. In the meantime, SNW came out and has been widely praised with its version of TOS-era characters (mixing modern VFX and high-quality production values). So, I admit in my original post this is merely speculation, but I’m informed when I speculate.

Paramount has made plenty of movies since Beyond. It’s been the razor thin margins on the last three movies that has the studio preceding cautiously. Even if the studio is flush in Top Gun dollars these days, they aren’t going to green light another Trek movies who’s best prospects are break even.

True only for Star Trek. Transformers the Last Knight bombed and they still made Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts. They didn’t mothball Mission Impossible either after the Abrams film was a near boxoffice bomb. They are still making them.

The television and movie divisions of big companies like Paramount are usually separate. So what’s happening with Star Trek on TV may not affect what the movie division chooses to do.

That’s a lot of money for somebody who is telling his bosses not to have high expectations!

Keep in mind that Zoe Saldaña, because of her role in Avatar and the MCU, is currently a bigger star than Chris Pine, who recently had multiple box office bombs (A Wrinkle in Time, Wonder Woman 1984, The Contractor).
Would she accept less money than Chris Pine at this point?
Then there is the salary for the rest of the standard crew, plus a high-profile actor as the antagonist.
Paramount has to spend a lot of money on the actors’ salaries alone.

Interesting how you conveniently leave off his most recent movie, All the Old Knives, which was a hit on Amazon Prime.

They’re not wrong though. Saldana may be harder to snag than Pine. She really is a bit of a bigger deal than him right now.

Maybe. However, her career is build upon supporting+ roles in a couple of sf/comic franchises, and that has yet to translate to lead roles in movies outside of that (don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she is very well paid for those roles).

For example, you don’t see her getting lead roles in Amazon, Netflix and Apple movies like we are seeing for Hanks, Pine. Theron and Hemsworth?

When that’s star happening, I will buy into your point more.

Exactly. She IS a bigger box-office draw right now.

Nah.

You answered the question yourself about why I left out “All the Old Knives”.
It was on Amazon Prime, with a limited theater release only.

A Wrinkle in Time (2018) lost $130 million (Deadline Hollywood).
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) lost $100 million (Hollywood Reporter).
The Contractor (2022):
Budget $40–50 million.
Box office $2.1 million worldwide.

VS

Saldaña appeared in three of the five highest-grossing films of all time (Avatar, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame), a feat not achieved by any other actor. Her films grossed more than $11 billion worldwide, and she is the second-highest-grossing film actress of all time as of 2019

Chris Pin definitely does need a hit.

Still, you have to caveat this a little. Wonder Woman was released at the height of COVID and was heavily viewed on HBO Max – most films WB released from 2020-2021 were sacrificed to boost the streaming side of things and their box office was gravy. Dune for example probably wouldn’t have gotten its sequel if it had grossed what it did pre-pandemic.

Saldana hasn’t tried to headline too many movies herself, so her actual marquee appeal is a bit of a question mark. She’s an integral part of Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Trek and Avatar, but there’s an asterisk since she hasn’t put herself out there on her own like say, Chris Pratt or Scarlet Johansson.

Exactly!

Yeah, but the fact is, she’s been in bigger, higher grossing films than Pine and that makes her a hotter (and perhaps more expensive) commodity than Pine.

I don’t think so. She’s not a lead. She’s pretty easy to replace in any project she’s been involved with.

Maybe, but she’s a mo-capped CGI alien in Avatar and a green alien in the Marvel Universe, and a glorified cameo in The Adam Project. She hasn’t really been tested at all as a lead, whereas Pine gets a lot of work as one with no more makeup than a beard. It’s pretty hard to quantify who is the bigger draw – Pine who gets the lead but middling box office outside of Trek and DC, or Saldana who is a supporting actor in big projects except when she’s turned into a Na’avi. Not sure anyone can win this one yet.

Lol, you ever hear of COVID?

COVID in 2018?

You can’t blame COVID for a $50m/$2.1m box office bomb in 2022

No you can’t. It’s apparent that Pine himself is not a box office draw at all.

Which of course explains whey Amazon has a multiple movie deal with Pine as the lead.

Whoops! :-)) LOL

Amazon can have whatever deal they like; it’s their money. But there is nothing in Pine’s career to date to indicate he is a box office draw.

You miss the point. Why would Hemsworth, Theron, Hanks, Pine and others get signed up as lead for multiple picture deals from the major streaming services? (It’s a rhetorical question as the answer is obvious)

Dude, no offense, but I trust the Amazon Execs determination on Pine’s box office draw more than I trust your “trust me, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express Last Night” assessment. :-)

Yeah, buy your point collapses as you then only can claim one bad Pine movie like four years ago. And if that’s your claim, well you conveniently leave out 2017’s Wonder Woman…you know, the $800M earning movie? Whoops! :-))

No, I didn’t leave anything conveniently out.

That was my point.

Since his success with Wonder Woman in 2017, all his theatrical released movies (3) are financial flops.
(The only movie I left out was the animated movie “Into the Spider-Verse” where he had a voice role).

$2.1m box office for a movie with a $50m budget in 2022.
That is what collapse looks like.

You seem hung up on A Wrinkle in Time and The Contractor? LOL, not all of a big actors movies are going to be winners. Ever heard of Ishtar? And Cruise has had several streaks of 2-3 bad movies in a row…even Tom Hanks…so what?

And I really should refrain from reviewing for you the crazy bad financial performance of the non-franchise movies of Zaldana, because we both know how that’s going to go…I Kill Giants, Nina, Columbiana…lol, at least people have heard of the failed Pine movies.

I’d buy your argument on Pine more if Zaldana wasn’t your comparison. Take out her sf/comic franchise movies where she plays a supporting and not the lead role, and what do you have left? What has she done as a lead?

When (if?) they do get filming they definitely need to throwaway reference the delays/lost versions of ST 4 similar to ‘arent you dead?’ In Trek II.

No, if anything they should keep that reference and have fun with it! No need to dismiss it.

With SNW running co-currently, this looks like a studio that doesn’t really know what the left and right hand are doing. We have effectively two reboots running at the same time separated only by a timeline/multi-verse technicality. This seems like a good way of wearing out the novelty.

It’s going to be a trick to get a Kelvin movie to thrive at the Box Office after this long of a wait, alongside the much newer and very popular SNW reboot. They’ll need a pretty big budget at it is to compete with SNW.
With SNW running co-currently, this looks like a studio that doesn’t really know what the left and right hand are doing. We have effectively two reboots running at the same time separated only by a timeline/multi-verse technicality. This seems like a good way of wearing out the novelty.

It’s going to be a trick to get a Kelvin movie to thrive at the Box Office after this long of wait, alongside the fresher and popular SNW reboot. They’ll need a pretty big budget at it is to compete with SNW.

How do you know that SNW is “very popular”?
Do you have access to the Paramount Plus viewership numbers?

How do you know if the sky is blue if you’re inside today?

Because Star Trek fans across the internet have been loving it and it was consistently trending as it was airing.

Trending? On Twitter?
You know that Twitter shows you “Trending Topics” according to your interests unless you change your settings.

Good point. None of the streaming services is very transparent about their revenue. And in any event, a $150mm feature film is going to need to drag in more than just Trek fans. It will need casual moviegoers, and most of them are in the 18-25 year-old demographic, which is not Trek’s main demographic. It will also need solid international box office, which no Trek film has really managed. The only way Trek works in cinemas is if they have pared-down budgets, like the ’80’s films, but I’m not sure there’s large enough general audience willing to plunk down the kind of cash needed to see a movie these days for a low-budget Star Trek picture, no matter how good it may be.

Lots of third party data aggregators have access to devices that are used to stream shows, so they can gauge popularity similar to Nielsen’s sample household model. And SNW shot to #1 during its run: https://www.thewrap.com/top-new-shows-paramount-plus-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-hbo-max-our-flag-means-death/

Parrot Analytics and their “Demand Expressions” is a phony metric.

Parrot Analytics is also not analyzing data from devices, Samba TV is doing that. Parrot Analytics is only collecting data from internet sites.

You can take a direct look at these numbers yourself.
Just look at Google Trends for DIS, PIC, and SNW for the last 5 years.
Or how many people are rating shows:

The number of people that rated episodes on IDMB:

  • DIS 1×01 7,577
  • DIS 1×15 4,113
  • DIS 2×01 4,721
  • DIS 2×14 4,545
  • DIS 3×01 4,612
  • DIS 3×13 3,371
  • DIS 4×01 3,034
  • DIS 4×13 1,863
  • PIC 1×01 7,055
  • PIC 1×10 4,101
  • PIC 2×01 3,704
  • PIC 2×10 2,372
  • SNW 1×01 4,168
  • SNW 1×10 2,185

The number of (Critics/Users) that rated seasons on Rotten Tomatoes:

  • DIS S1 373/9190
  • DIS S2 209/3201
  • DIS S3 34/1095
  • DIS S4 15/798
  • PIC S1 253/3126
  • PIC S2 94/776
  • SNW S1 80/792

The number of (Critics/Users) that rated seasons on Metacritic:

  • DIS S1 20/1322
  • DIS S2 10/247
  • DIS S3 8/105
  • DIS S4 1/50
  • PIC S1 27/181
  • PIC S2 7/71
  • SNW S1 14/80

The only place where real viewership numbers exist, and not data about “Trending” or “Demand” or something else, is Canada. Numeris, the Canadian version of Nielsen, is providing these numbers:

  • DIS 1×10 1,211k viewers
  • PIC 1×10 1,382k viewers
  • SNW 1×10 400k viewers

No statistician in their right mind would use anonymous internet reviews to try to draw any trend conclusions from. First, it’s not statistically sound because you can’t claim a representative population. Secondly, it’s become obvious in recent years that many people (e.g. Group-think internet fanboy types, as well as Trumpers) are deliberately voting against many movies they either can’t stand or have deemed progressive, or any number of dumbass reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the movie.

Your reading comprehension is very lacking.
It’s not about how people voted, it’s about how MANY people voted, aka. “audience engagement”.
And in the case of Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic, it is also about how MANY professional critics wrote reviews.

The number of professional critics who wrote reviews for SNW S1 is on the level with PIC S2 (which is significantly down from PIC S1). So is the number of users that voted for SNW S1. All the audience engagement numbers for SNW S1 are on the level of PIC S2, and these are low numbers.
None of these numbers show that SNW is a huge hit.

Well your understanding of statistics and survey science is worse than my reading comprehension.

Those numbers are meaningless because they are not representative of viewership. It’s fun to look at them and to pretend that you can draw conclusions from them, but at the end of the day any conclusions you might try to claim from them regarding viewership levels (and by extrapolation, the relative success of different TV series) is simply total BS.

Google “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Beams Up to Top of Most In-Demand New Shows” and you get a The Wrap article citing Parrot Analytics data. SNW was the #1 streaming show when it debuted. It’s bizarre Paramount+ did not trumpet it’s success.

Because it’s “Parrot Analytics”.

Why link to a third party?

What they should do is provide their own data, “hours viewed”, like Netflix, and not link to an audience engagement analytics corporation with their phony “Demand Expressions” metric.

Did you know that all the big streamers, Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Hulu, Apple, and HBO are providing their “minutes viewed” data to Nielsen for their “Top 10 Streaming chart”?
Except for Paramount.

If you are going to make claims like this, then you should provide results that prove this is the case. For example, you say that some of the streaming sights provide viewership data, and you note that Canada uses Nielsens still. If that is the case, then you can pick some series that have both this data and Parrot’s data, and compare what Parrot says about viewership to these data sources and see how the results compare before you make claims like this here.

Otherwise, you are kind of just saying “trust me I know” here, which is fine, but is not very compelling. Perhaps Parrot gets it right in many cases, and perhaps it doesn’t? I would need to see a comparative analysis before I made bold claims on fan sites to support either case here.

Queue up Phil…

Don’t mind me, I’m just here for the comments… :-)

Bin it. Nobody cares.

Make 2 SNW movies and another one with a new cast for the price of JJ rubbish.

I care so do many others. You don’t speak for everyone.

Gatekeeping is not allowed here, dude.

you be quiet

“Bin it. Nobody cares.”

You don’t speak for fandom. You speak for only one person: you. And as it happens, MANY people care. Gatekeepers are the worst.

I do i prefer it to Strange New Worlds. Which isn’t nearly as good or the same flavor as TOS. Only Anson Mount as Pike has been consistently good. The new Kirk is awful, Pine is way better. Not because he is like Shatner Kirk but because he does it with verve and energy unlike the guy who sounds like he is reading a telephone book from a teleprompter. That is not to say JJTrek doesn’t have weaknesses, the shaking camera, the lens flares. The frenetic pace. The pacing issues.

There aren’t going to be any SNW movies, at least not in theaters. I’ve never understood why some fans think the natural evolution of a Trek iteration is: series, then movies. I suppose it’s because both TOS and TNG evolved into film series. But TOS was at or near it’s pop culture peak when Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released (it got a lot of straight news coverage that no Trek picture since has received), and remained somewhat (but not extraordinarily) popular in through most of the 1980’s. TNG’s leap to the movies didn’t go over quite as well. The show was still quite popular when it went off the air, so continuing the Trek movie series with TNG made some sense. Problem was there really the TNG cast did not resonate with casual moviegoers to the same extent that the TOS cast did.

First Contact was the only good movie out of 4 a horrible track record. Berman just wasn’t good as a film producer.

To be honest, all of the TNG movies have a kind of pro forma air to them. Even First Contact to degree, but it just happens that movie turned out pretty well. And I would agree: Rick Berman was not a good movie producer.

Need a crossover movie between Strange New Worlds and Kelvin universe. I want to see the Kirks meet.

More likely to be TOS (via DF) meets Kelvin

Honestly, I’m sure there’s a great story out there waiting for the Kelvin crew (given the talent that supposedly work on writing new scripts for a movie), but I would be surprised at this point if we get a 4th Kelvin film. And sure, it would be nice, and as a Trek fan I’d welcome it, but I don’t think anyone is banging down the doors at Paramount begging for one to come out.

I’d forget about the Kelvinverse. Just take the Kelvin cast and make a new Primeverse movie series inbetween TMP and TWOK… One that has midbudget, intelligent storytelling at its center. One that is inspired by Interstellar, Arrival, Passengers, Annihilation, Dune, not by Star Wars or the MCU… One that handles the Refit Enterprise just like SNW, a visual reboot that keeps the overall feel…

You know what’s doing well – Top Gun.
You make a TOS action adventure that is about exploring the final frontier complete with mystery, danger and adventure pushing the limits of person and machine and you’ve got a winner with the Kelvin cast.
Make it about a bad analogy with a flying hotel that lasts seconds in combat and reap what you sow. Leave that BS for Picard and maybe the comedy cartoon that can get some laughs mocking it.

Not a peep about this project at Comic-Con, apparently. That’s all you need to know.

Wait, wait…..there’s Patrick Stewart, opening the door to another movie. And Kurtzman, with a ‘never say never’ response. The plot thickens.

JJprise goes into the Primeverse (Picard era) or vice versa. ??

They could stay in the Kelvin-universe and have Kirk meeting Kelvin-Picard and the JJprise-D.
And finally have the movie Generations could have been.

Budget vs Spectacle is why! Clearly the actors will cost way more than ever before so less budget to play with so they have to spend way longer crafting a story worth telling within the budget limits!

While i want a Star Trek Discovery movie more than i do of any of the current shows i would be happy if any or all of them ending up getting a movie.

I can see a Discovery movie happening sooner rather than later as Discovery is still has the highest number of viewers than any of the current shows including SNW.

That is according to not only Paramount themselves but a member of the Paramount+ Marketing department was asked on twitter why was Discovery getting more advisement than SNW.

They answered simply that Discovery despite SNW’s positive fan reception still has the highest number of ratings on Paramount+ and that is why Discovery gets the lions share of the advisement and also why Discovery will continue to be the lead show until it ends.

I’m not holding my breath on a fourth movie ever coming. But tbh, I wouldn’t mind if they just left it as a neat trilogy. I like the actors, and it’d be nice to see them again but if it never happened I wouldn’t be too upset as we now have SNW.

I think we’ve a lot to be thankful for with the Kelvin movies, regardless of what you think of them. I believe they spawned the current ultra-fruitful era we’re enjoying at the moment, contrary to those that cite DISC as the catalyst.

We’ve so much great, bad and everything in between Trek content in production and coming up soon that adding in movies might feel like the MCU; overstuffed, intimidating and exhausting.