Star Trek Boldly Returns With 2023's Most Underrated Director At The Helm

Paramount is finally warming up the warp core again. After nearly a decade away from theaters, Star Trek is headed back to the big screen — with a new team at the helm and, yeah, a clean break from the Chris Pine era.

Who is steering this thing?

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley — the duo behind 2023's Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves — are set to direct the next Star Trek movie, per THR. They deliver fun, character-first crowd-pleasers; D&D earned real goodwill from critics and audiences even if the box office didn’t match the buzz.

Not your Kelvin-timeline Star Trek

If you were holding out hope for Star Trek 4 with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, bad news: as of last week, that sequel to Beyond is reportedly dead at Paramount. The new movie Goldstein and Daley are making is a fresh start with zero ties to the Kelvin timeline. Translation: Pine, who headlined three Kelvin films and led the directors' D&D, is not expected to return. This new Trek will be produced under the duo's GoldDay banner.

Quick context and receipts

• This will be the first Star Trek film in theaters since 2016's Star Trek Beyond.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023): IMDb 7.2, Rotten Tomatoes 91% Tomatometer, 92% Audience, $205.4M worldwide — loved by many, pricey for what it made.
• Star Trek Beyond (2016): IMDb 7.0, Rotten Tomatoes 86% Tomatometer, 80% Audience, $343.4M worldwide.
• Goldstein/Daley's Trek is being built as a standalone, produced through their GoldDay banner, with no connections to prior films.
• The long-gestating Kelvin-timeline Star Trek 4 with Pine and Quinto was reported dead at Paramount last week.
• Previous false starts include that much-talked-about Quentin Tarantino pitch that never happened.

Why hit reset now?

On the big screen, the franchise lost momentum after Beyond. Paramount shifted focus to streaming, mining the brand across shows and specials. Even the Michelle Yeoh-led Section 31 — a TV movie that started life as a series — landed poorly with a lot of fans and critics. So this new feature has a clear job: remind people why Star Trek in a theater is worth the trip.

So what should we expect?

Goldstein and Daley know how to balance banter, heart, and adventure — their D&D movie proves it — and Trek could use that energy. The trick is finding the right tone: nimble and optimistic without turning into a joke machine. No plot details yet, no release date yet. Early days.

Meanwhile, their day job

The pair is currently directing Mayday, an Apple Original action-adventure starring Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds. Once that lands, eyes will turn to their Trek.

What do you want from a clean-slate Star Trek movie? Sound off below.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and Star Trek Beyond are streaming on Paramount+ in the US.