Strange New Worlds Renewed, Lower Decks Cancelled

Paramount+ has announced that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fourth season. Currently season three is in production with plan to debut in 2025. 

However, with the good news comes that bad. Star Trek: Lower Decks has been cancelled after the upcoming fifth and now final season that is set to debut sometime in the fall later this year.

To the fans,

We wanted to let you know that this fall will be the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks. While five seasons of any series these days seems like a miracle, it’s no exaggeration to say that every second we've spent making this show has been a dream come true. Our incredible cast, crew and artists have given you everything they have because they love the characters they play, they love the world we've built, and more than anything we all love love love Star Trek. We’re excited for the world to see our hilarious fifth season which we're working on right now, and the good news is that all previous episodes will remain on Paramount+ so there is still so much to look forward to as we celebrate the Cerritos crew with a big send-off.

Finally, thank you for always being so creative and joyful, for filling convention halls and chanting
LOWER DECKS!" We remain hopeful that even beyond Season 5, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford and the whole Cerritos crew will live on with new adventures.

LLAP
Mike McMahan and Alex Kurtzman

Paramount Officially Confirms Star Trek Origin Movie

The annual CinemaCon was held in Vegas this week where the studios put on show and tells for theater executives to help get their support in promoting their various movie plans for the next year or so. As part of that Paramount revealed their movie plans. While light on details, this is the first official confirmation that Paramount is working on "Untitled Star Trek Origin Story". 

Since Toby Haynes (Black Mirror: USS Callister) was hired to direct with Seth Grahame-Smith (Beetlejuice 2) writing, it was already basically official anyway but nothing wrong with a public announcement to mark the commitment. Little is known about this story except it is set before even Star Trek (2009) and probably Star Trek: Discovery so it can act as an origin story for both universes (Prime and Kelvin). The assumption is its an origin story about Starfleet but so far nothing to actually verify that. 

Other Paramount plans include Mission Impossible 8 on May 23, 2025, Gladiator II, remake of The Running Man with Edgar Wright, Transformers crossover with GI Joe, Naked Gun film with Liam Neeson, live-action graphic novel adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin that will be R-rated and more.

Star Trek: Discovery's Final Season Begins on Paramount+

Friendly reminder that Star Trek: Discovery fifth and final season has its first two episodes available now on Paramount+. Below is a recap of the previous four season from Whoopi Goldberg along with a set tour with Wilson Cruz. The full season is only 10 episodes. A new episode coming out each Thursday morning for the next 8 weeks ending the series run with a total of 65 episodes. The last video below is the full first episode of the season on YouTube.

Variety Article Provides Movie, TV Show Updates

Variety has posted a feature article on the current status of Star Trek that looks at where the franchise will be going for the next year or so. This includes updates on the shows and plans to forge ahead on a new Star Trek theatrical movie.  Below are the key highlights.

CBS CEO Comments on Star Trek's Future

For those hoping that Star Trek: Legacy series (inspired by Picard season 3) might be greenlit soon, CBS CEI George Cheeks put the kibosh on that. The idea isn't dead but his answer was framed as trying to avoid oversaturation. Suspect budget is also a significant factor with three shows (Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy, Lower Decks) and a movie (Section 31) in production. The full interview with the CEO about CBS and Paramount+ can be read at Vulture. Below is the relevant Star Trek quote.

Star Trek remains one of the most important franchises for Paramount Global, and Paramount+ specifically. There’s so much great opportunity with the franchise, and it’s really about the cadence and the timeline of it.

We don’t want to offer up all these amazing premium drama series at once. We want to time it out appropriately. Luckily, we have this incredible partner in Alex Kurtzman, and we all work together to sort of manage long-range planning across many years, to figure out what’s the right cadence for dropping new Star Trek series.

So there’s a lot we’re focused on, but it should not suggest to you [a scaling back]. There is a tremendous amount of focus and prioritizing of the Star Trek franchise.”