Zachary Quinto's Star Trek 4 Expectations Are Low, But He Still Thinks It Could Be Fun

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Despite having as fervent a fanbase as Star Wars, the Star Trek franchise has never fared as well on the big screen. Back in 2009, J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek for the big screen, introducing younger versions of Captain Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew of the USS Enterprise in a bid to start a new film franchise. Zachary Quinto played Spock in all three films in the series that were released to moderate success. In an interview with PopCulture, the actor admitted he no longer has any expectations that Star Trek 4 is in the offing.

"Honestly, I have no real idea what's going on with Star Trek. [But] we all love each other and we all love that experience and I'm sure if it comes back around and we're all available, I'm sure we'd be happy to jump back on board. No pun intended. But I don't know - that's in other people's hands and I know I, for one, have had sort of moved on in terms of any kind of expectations, but you never know things come back in surprising ways and it's surprising times, and it could be fun if it happens."

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The truth is, while the Star Trek films made a lot of money, with the highest grosser on the list, Star Trek into the Darkness minting $467 million at the box office, the movies were never able to do numbers similar to the MCU, Star Wars or even Fast & Furious. That meant the expenses of making the movies coupled with heavy marketing campaigns ultimately led to the Star Trek series barely managing to break even in terms of revenue.

Hopefully, Zachary Quinto will one day have the opportunity to slip on the pointy ears once again as Spock, something the actor would love to do again under the right circumstances.

"I consider anything and everything that comes into my experience and I consider it on an individual basis based on criteria that are specific to that time and those circumstances. It's hard to be theoretical about things... I love that character. I love that world. I think there's a lot of possibilities of storytelling in there and I'd certainly be open to any conversation, but it depends on the who, what, where when and how and why - and like all those questions that can only be answered in specifics, not necessarily hypothetically. So we'll see."

A fourth movie in the series had been announced all the way back in 2016, with Quinto on board to return as Spock, along with Chris Pine as Kirk and Chris Hemsworth as Kirk's father. But the project has been stuck in development hell for a long time. The script for the film has been in flux, with multiple writers joining and then leaving the project over time. For now, Paramount appears to focus on the streaming and television side of Star Trek, with shows like Picard and Lower Decks drawing acclaim from fans and critics. This news originated at popculture.com.