After months of speculation, JJ Abrams has finally gone ahead and confirmed what we were all expecting anyway: he’s going to direct Star Trek XII. Or II. Whatever it’s going to be called, he’s directing it.
Despite the phenomenal success of 2009’s critically acclaimed reboot the Star Trek sequel has faced a number of delays, not least of which was the fact that Abrams was himself committed to directing this summer’s Super 8 as well as producing the forthcoming Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol. On top of that, co-writer Alex Kurtzman has been working on his own directorial debut, Welcome to People, meaning that Star Trek’s so-called ‘supreme court’ has been stretched pretty thin of late – so much so, in fact, that Paramount had previously confirmed that the film would not meet its already announced release date of June 29th 2012, a spot that has now been taken by G.I Joe 2: Retaliation.
Still, the stars are finally aligning for the new crew of the Starship Enterprise; work on the long in development script will reportedly be complete by the end of this month with shooting beginning sometime during the winter (most signs suggest a January stardate – I mean start date; sorry). The studio has already exercised its options on the cast, meaning that Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin will all be returning to the roles they first played in the 2009 film.
Look for the Star Trek sequel to warp into cinemas anywhere from Christmas 2012 to summer 2013.
