Simon Pegg on the future of Star Trek: "These movies don’t make Marvel money"

(Image credit: Paramount)

Ever since Star Trek: Beyond beamed into cinemas, Trekkies have been wondering when the adventures of Chris Pine's James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto's Spock would continue on the big screen. Unfortunately, there's been no official confirmation from Paramount, and, instead, an assortment of reports have claimed widely different things (Noah Hawley has been linked to Star Trek 4, while Quentin Tarantino is also reportedly making his own movie). 

Speaking to GamesRadar+ and Total Film, Simon Pegg – who plays Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the J.J. Abrams-produced Trek movies – said he was still not aware of whether any future sequels would happen, explaining how the loss of Anton Yelchin (who died in 2016) has dampened the cast's enthusiasm for future projects. 

"The fact is, Star Trek movies don’t make Marvel money," Pegg, promoting his latest movie Lost Transmissions, said. "They make maybe $500m at the most, and to make one now, on the scale they’ve set themselves, is $200m. You have to make three times that to make a profit. 

"I don’t feel like the last one… They didn’t really take advantage of the 50th anniversary. The regimen at the time dropped the ball on the promo of the film. And we’ve lost momentum. I think losing Anton [Yelchin] was a huge blow to our little family, and our enthusiasm to do another one might have been affected by that. So I don’t know."

You can read the full Q&A with Pegg – in which the actor discusses Lost Transmissions, Mission: Impossible 7, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – here.

Simon Pegg and director Katharine O’Brien will be at the Glasgow Film Festival with Lost Transmission on February 29, and the film will be out later this year. GFF runs until March 8. https://glasgowfilm.org/glasgow-film-festival.

Jack Shepherd
Freelance Journalist

Jack Shepherd is the former Senior Entertainment Editor of GamesRadar. Jack used to work at The Independent as a general culture writer before specializing in TV and film for the likes of GR+, Total Film, SFX, and others. You can now find Jack working as a freelance journalist and editor.