Following this summer's Star Trek Into Darkness, there's virtually no official word as to the future of the franchise, but the core actors are committed to a third go-round. Zachary Quinto, for one, has indicated that the next sequel ought to roll around faster than Into Darkness, which arrive four years after Star Trek rejiggered the series in 2009.
Since 2016 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Gene Roddenberry's original series hitting the airwaves, the assumption is that Paramount Pictures is hoping to have the thirteenth Trek movie in theaters for the half-century hoopla.
After Terminator reboot TV show writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were briefly rumored for Star Trek 3 this summer, word emerged that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci were in negotiations to return as screenwriters and producers, having written Star Trek together and Star Trek Into Darkness with Damon Lindelof.
Except that it turns out Kurtzman won't actually be writing this one alongside his partner Orci. Instead, Orci will team with Payne and McKay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. You won't recognize their names from any produced features, but Payne and McKay, like Kurtzman and Orci, have a history with Bad Robot. Specifically, they wrote an adaptation of the comic Boilerplate for producer J.J. Abrams.
Abrams, of course, added zippiness and contemporary blockbuster spectacle to the moribund Star Trek franchise before abandoning warp for hyperdrive. He's currently busy directing Star Wars: Episode VII, but is still on Star Trek 3 as a producer.
That means this movie needs a director. While G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Justin Bieber's Believe director Jon M. Chu and Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt have been mentioned as possibilities, Joe Cornish is reportedly the top choice to take over for Abrams. If the writer-director behind Attack the Block does end up at the helm of Star Trek 3, it'll be good news for the sequel.
Whatever Star Trek 3 ends up looking like, don't expect another mystery box approach to the villain's identity. Abrams and company famously played denied the biggest rumor on Star Trek Into Darkness, insisting for throughout production and right up to the release that Benedict Cumberbatch was not playing Khan Noonien Singh, only to have the character declare "My name is Khan!"
Speaking with MTV, the director revealed that he has re-thought the whole inexplicably secretive approach, saying, “The truth is I think it probably would have been smarter just to say upfront ‘This is who it is.’ It was only trying to preserve the fun of it, and it might have given more time to acclimate and accept that’s what the thing was.”
“The truth is because it was so important to the studio that we not angle this thing for existing fans," Abrams went on, throwing Paramount under the space-bus a little bit. "If we said it was Khan, it would feel like you’ve really got to know what Star Trek is about to see this movie. That would have been limiting. I can understand their argument to try to keep that quiet, but I do wonder if it would have seemed a little bit less like an attempt at deception if we had just come out with it.”
