Chris Pine Opens Up About His Love for STAR TREK, The Fourth Film, and Why the Franchise Struggled

Chris Pine still hasn’t seen a script for Star Trek 4, but he has met with director Matt Shakman (WandaVision) and Paramount’s new executive regime to discuss the project, and those meetings are said to have gone well. Pine will be reprising his role in the film as Captain James T. Kirk, and during a recent interview, the actor opened up about the franchise and his love for it saying:

“Conceptually, I love it. I love Star Trek. Again, I love the messaging of it. I love the character. I love my friends with whom I get to play. It’s a great gig. I mean, it’s a gig I’ve had, working and not working, for 15-plus years. It cemented the career that I have now. I’m honored to be a part of it. It’s given me so much. I think there are plenty of stories to tell in it. You know, I think Star Trek for me, it’s an interesting one.”

Pine went on to talk about the franchise and trying to emulate the success of what Marvel was doing with their films and shares his thoughts on why his Star Trek films didn’t do as well at the box office as what Marvel was pulling in.

“We always tried to get the huge international market. It was always about making the billion dollars. It was always this billion-dollar mark because Marvel was making a billion. Billion, billion, billion. We struggled with it because Star Trek, for whatever reason, its core audience is rabid. Like rabid, as you know. To get these people that are interested that maybe are Star Wars fans or think Star Trek is not cool or whatever, proven to be … we’ve definitely done a good job of it but not the billion-dollar kind of job that they want.”

I will say that those Star Trek films that were made under Abrams’ watch could have been a lot better in terms of story. While I really liked the first of those films, the other two weren’t as good. My issue with them was is that they didn’t really feel like Star Trek movies. It felt like they were trying to be Marvel movies, and that just didn’t work.

Pine went on to say that when making these films the filmmakers should’ve been more concerned with the avid fanbase than the big billion-dollar box-office returns:

“I’ve always thought that Star Trek should operate in the zone that is smaller. You know, it’s not a Marvel appeal. It’s like, let’s make the movie for the people that love this group of people, that love this story, that love Star Trek. Let’s make it for them and then, if people want to come to the party, great. But make it for a price and make it, so that if it makes a half-billion dollars, that’s really good.”

I 100% agree, and I think the franchise would have been better off for it as they wouldn’t have alienated the core fans. Hopefully, this new film that’s in development will actually take Pine’s thoughts to heart and they will actually make a Star Trek film geared toward Star Trek fans. It seems like that’s what the shows are doing. Pine went on to share what he would do with the rising costs of tentpole films:

“But we operate in a system now which I don’t know how much longer we have of you have to spend 500 million dollars on a film to reach …even you have to pay all sorts of people back. So, to make a billion, it’s like you haven’t even — a billion is the gross. You haven’t brought your net in. So, I mean, if I had my business suit on, that’s what I would do, but I don’t know where that is. That’s all above my pay grade.”

Pine definitely has his head on his shoulders when it comes to this franchise, and hopefully, the people who are above his pay grade are listening to him.

Source: Deadline