SDCC ‘26: New STAR TREK film will feature entirely new set of characters

Star Trek fans got a big hint at what the future may hold for the franchise at San Diego Comic-Con 2026. And while color skeptical that this next film will actually see the light of day, what was teased at SDCC is an intriguing twist to the franchise’s traditional movie formula: an entirely new cast of Star Trek characters.

The news about the new film comes as the television side of Star Trek starts to wind down. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds just started its last full-length season this week, with its final truncated season currently in post-production. Meanwhile, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, the franchise’s foray into YA teen dramas, is ending with its second season. Other rumored series have reportedly already been scrapped.

But the movie side of the franchise is a different story, with the script for the new Star Trek film already in progress. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the duo behind Game Night, are steering a new big-screen entry in the franchise. Collider‘s Steve Weintraub hosted the pair on a directors’ panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, July 23rd, and the website’s Samantha Coley was on the ground with the details.

Goldstein and Daley are clearly fired up about the Star Trek film project. They have promised fans will be caught off guard by where it goes. For the first time in the franchise’s history, the film will build around an entirely new set of characters, rather than reuniting The Original Series or The Next Generation casts, or recasting the TOS crew as the “Kelvin Timeline” trilogy did.

The setting pushes even further: the duo describe it as taking place “further in the future than we’ve been before” — language that hints at a clean break from established eras, whether that means leapfrogging past the 24th-century world of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, or venturing beyond the 32nd century already charted by Discovery and Starfleet Academy. Above all, Goldstein and Daley say the goal is a film that rewards longtime fans while pulling in new ones.