Last we heard, J.J. Abrams hadn’t officially decided if he was going to return to direct the sequel to his highly successful reboot of ‘Star Trek.’ After all, according to imdb, he’s got 14 projects in development and he was just named the principal investor of FactoryMade Ventures. But Trekkies take heart! Abrams is boldly going where he has gone before and has officially signed on to direct ‘Star Trek 2’!
Part of the hold up, according to Vulture, was that Alex Kurtzman (who wrote the first screenplay with Abrams, Roberto Orci and Dave Lindelof) had been busy putting the finishing touches on his movie ‘Welcome to People’ which would mark his directorial debut at DreamWorks Pictures. Now that he is done, he can focus all his attention on ‘Star Trek 2’.
So we now have all four original writers from the first movie working on the sequel! Vulture reported that the script is expected to be completed and turned in to the studios by the end of this month. If that goes as planned, filming should start by winter or at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, that means the sequel won’t be released until 2013. Originally, the movie was to be released in June 2012 but when Abrams still hadn’t committed, Paramount decided to give its release date to ‘G.I. Joe 2: Retailiation.’
This is all fine as I would rather have Abrams take his time and really make a sequel that is worthy of the original. ‘Star Trek’ was the highest money making movie of all the ‘Star Trek’ movie franchises grossing $257 million domestically and $385 million worldwide. With the original screenwriting team back on the project and the return of cast members Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (Bones), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Anton Yelchin (Chekov) and John Cho (Sulu), this sequel is already looking like it will give Trekkies the film they’ve been waiting for! So although the Enterprise won’t be travelling at warp speed, at least be satisfied knowing the ship is in good hands with the original crew on board.
