In the original Star Trek timeline, Carol Marcus and Cpt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) enter into a romantic relationship and eventually have a son named David. However, with the films set in the new Kelvin Timeline, all bets are off. Yet it seems the original plan for Beyond was to keep Carol and Kirk paired together before the decision was made to save Marcus for future installments. Said co-screenwriter Simon Pegg, "We thought rather than have Carol Marcus be not used to a reasonable capacity, let’s just not include her, have her be alive, in canon, and be ready to come back at any time."
There were originally plans to reference Carol in the script and explain that she had gone off to work on the Genesis project but it was nixed for some reason. “I think we had some lines to explain her absence in one of the initial drafts that had her going off to start work on the Genesis project and do sort of very, very early research on that, but it didn’t make it into the final cut,” explained Pegg.
Though nixed from Beyond, this could be a huge clue for what the plot of the recently announced Star Trek 4 entails. Project Genesis was featured in both Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Could the next installment in the franchise not only see the return of Eve but also Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan? Benedict would be coming off a new season of Sherlock and would have made his MCU debut in Doctor Strange.His star-power in the US and abroad would be at an all-time high.
Star Trek Beyond is currently in theaters. Released last weekend, the film has currently grossed $169.4 million worldwide from an estimated production budget of $185 million.