Chris Pine is still interested in playing Captain Kirk in Star Trek 4

The drama with Star Trek 4 continues as Chris Pine tells Variety on the TIFF red carpet that he is still open and willing to be in the next movie.

News broke in early August that Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth were no longer in talks for the upcoming fourth Star Trek film in the rebooted franchise. This was heartbreaking news to fans, as they’d watched Chris Pine embody Captain James T. Kirk of the Enterprise for the last three films.

Pine has not said much about his future with the Star Trek franchise, until he walked the red carpet at TIFF for his film Outlaw King. Pine opened up to Variety about his hope that the companies behind the next Star Trek film, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Media, can work out a deal for him to return as Captain Kirk.

As Pine says in the video, he’d love to be involved in the upcoming movie.

“I don’t know, man,” Pine told Variety‘s Marc Malkin. “I’d love to be involved, and we’ll see what happens. I’ll await the phone call. Until then, I look forward to it.”

Negotiations ended for both Pine and Hemsworth due to the usual suspect: money. Pine and Hemsworth essentially want the money they were initially promised and negotiated when Star Trek 4 was announced, and Star Trek Beyond had not been released yet. Paramount, however, saw Star Trek Beyond‘s poor performance and is pushing for a pay cut.

Hemsworth, who played George Kirk in the 2009 film Star Trek was set to return as Jim Kirk’s father through a time travel storyline. With neither Pine nor Hemsworth being a part of it, the movie will have to shift or perhaps take on one of the three scripts being developed for the movie.

Having both Pine and Hemsworth back in the series would mean the world to fans so here’s to them figuring out the money discrepancy in their contracts so we can get the Star Trek 4 we want and deserve!

Check back here on Culturess for more Star Trek 4 news as it comes out. Fingers crossed we’ll see Chris Pine return as Captain Kirk!