Abrams' next "Trek" installment off Paramount's film slate

[Bob Jersey]

Till they find a new director, at least... Matt Shakman was lured away to Marvel, who courted him to replace Spider-Man: No Way Out helmer Jon Watts...

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/star-trek-sequel-removed-paramount-film-slate-1235386228/ (link)

B

[M-D November]

Speaking as a Trekker...meh. As much as I felt like the Kelvin timeline finally found its footing with "Star Trek Beyond" (stronger Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic, punchy script, not using the crutch of rehashing a prime-timeline story), the launch of the 1701-A (Kelvin) at the end of the film also felt like a decent way to tie up those stories.

I have to imagine, too, that it's hard to come up with a solid story to tell in the Kelvin timeline when the prime timeline is just WAY more interesting thanks in no small part to "Strange New Worlds"...

[David Bruggeman]

The passing of Anton Yelchin (Chekov) made it harder for me to feel that a fourth film was necessary.  It's also been more than six years since the last film, so even if they do get another film going, they're effectively restarting things.

David

[M-D November]

Agreed; I think that's why there had been some buzz about the next Kelvin timeline Trek film moving on to the TNG era (which would, admittedly, get around the need to explain Yelchin's absence and/or dealing with an aging primary cast), but SNW, Lower Decks and (regardless of what you think of it) Picard shows the original timeline still has plenty of story to explore.

(I didn't include Discovery in that list because now that they've shot ahead to the 32nd century, they're sort of beyond the canon conversation.)