In 2018, Paramount Pictures was ready to move forward with a follow-up to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond that would bring back Chris Hemsworth from the 2009 Star Trek movie as George Kirk, teaming up with his son, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). A script was written (by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay), a director was hired (S.J. Clarkson), and production was set to start in early 2019 for a likely summer 2020 release. However, deals with Hemsworth and Chris Pine could not get renegotiated and the project was shelved, leading Paramount to move on to several other attempts to bring Trek back to the big screen, most recently with some Marvel vets on a project that was recently removed from Paramount’s 2023 release calendar.
Last month, the screenwriters for the 2020 Star Trek 4 project revealed details of the story, including how Hemsworth’s George Kirk would have been moved forward in time to team up with Pine’s James T. Kirk via the transporter buffer (ala Scotty in “Relics”). Now the Thor actor is talking more about why he thinks his Star Trek project fell apart.
Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk in 2009’s Star Trek
On the latest Happy Sad Confused podcast, host Josh Horowitz lamented how he was never going to see the Star Trek 4 movie with Hemsworth. The actor noted that this was due to “a few reasons” and then assessed how the project never came together, focusing not on salary negotiations but on the script:
It wasn’t what I sort of where I was thinking it would have been or could have been. I thought there would be, ‘Okay, cool, let’s figure that out and keep going.’ And then I think everyone got busy and so on.
Hemsworth added that time has worked against the idea of reviving the role he shot 15 years ago:
It would be weird now to flash back to your father and “why is he so much older than the first time when he died?”
But when Horowitz talked about how much he liked Hemsworth’s role in the 2009 movie, the actor seemed open to the idea of returning, saying, “We could campaign to get it going, though.” In June of this year, Hemsworth stated he was willing to give it another shot:
There was talk about me doing the film with Chris Pine at one point. The script was sort of put together and then it fell apart. And if J.J. Abrams called me tomorrow and said, “Chris Pine and I want to do it,” I’d probably say “Yeah, let’s go for it.”
Chris Hemsworth at the Limitless release event on November 16 (Getty)
The latest Star Trek 4 project did not involve Hemsworth, but with that one pulled off the schedule, who knows what could happen next for the film franchise.