Zachary Quinto Still Hopeful 'Star Trek 4' Will Happen Eventually [TCA 2019]

At the beginning of 2019, news came that a fourth Star Trek film featuring the younger crew of the USS Enterprise had been shelved. The culprit was reportedly contract disputes involving Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth. However, not everyone is giving up hope on the sequel coming together.

Star Trek franchise star Zachary Quinto was on a Television Critics Association panel for his upcoming AMC series NOS4A2. After the panel, /Film asked if he was surprised to learn Star Trek 4 was on the back burner, and Quinto remained optimistic that a fourth film would be made... eventually.

Here's what Zachary Quinto had to say about the Star Trek 4 delay:

"I mean, it's been a broad conversation that we've been having for a while in terms of what's the future of the franchise. It's in process so I don't know exactly what to say other than there's no plans for a movie happening at this moment."

Star Trek 4 has been said to focus on a story that fins that Captain Kirk (Pine) meeting his late father (Hemsworth) thanks to some kind of sci-fi time travel phenomena. Hemsworth appeared in the prologue to 2009's Star Trek before he became Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so he's much more in-demand now then he was 10 years ago.S.J. Clarkson was attached to direct the sequel , making her the first female director of a Star Trek movie, but the continued delays have caused her to leave the project to helm the Game of Thrones prequel. So the sequel is in bad shape right now.

If Star Trek lost Hemsworth, they could still create another story featuring the Enterprise crew. If they can't keep Pine happy, the Kelvin timeline may be in trouble. And that's not to Paramount should pay Pine as much as he wants. The Enterprise crew is so integral to Star Trek that losing any one of them could be insurmountable. We've already lost Chekov due to the tragic death of Anton Yelchin and producer J.J. Abrams vowed not to replace him, so keeping the rest of the crew together is important.

Even though Star Trek isn't happening, it's not as if the crew is hurting for work. Quinto himself is launching a new series and continues to work in non-franchise movies. Even so, he's not thumbing his nose at Star Trek and still wants to do a fourth film if they can work everything out.

"I would love to. I feel like it's been an anchor of my creative life for the last over 10 years now so if I can go back to it, I'll always be happy to. I love my Star Trek family so we'll see how it goes."

NOS4A2, based on the book by Joe Hill, stars Quinto as a 130+ year old vampire named Charlie Manx. It will premiere on AMC this summer. /Film will have more on NOS4A2 from TCA this week.