A second installment of the rebooted Star Trek franchise has been a given for a while, even setting a release date for June 29, 2012. But as of right now, there is no official script, J.J. Abrams has yet to sign on as the director (although it seems as if this is still likely to happen), and Chris Pine (Captain Kirk) is set to take over the Jack Ryan role in the next Tom Clancy film adaptation. Will they kick things into high gear to compete with other huge 2012 releases The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers, or will it hold out for a December release?
While it seems like Abrams is expected to come back to direct, apparently, there has been no official commitment made as of this writing, so his return is still considered to be up in the air as far as Paramount is concerned. As for Pine, if Star Trek is delayed until December, there is a chance that he’ll be able to shoot the Clancy movie before the former begins production.
As for the script, there isn’t one, because the 70-page outline that does exist has not yet been turned into a script. The writers — Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof — while waiting for Abrams’ official go-ahead, have all been working on other projects while getting the next Trek story mapped out. (Namely Orci’s Ender’s Game script and this summer’s Cowboys & Aliens as well as Lindelof’s Prometheus. Kurtzman also directed Welcome to People. “The writers have been keeping busy” would be an understatement.)
The situation isn’t as bleak as it seems, but at this point, it’s unlikely that Star Trek 2 will be ready to release in just over a year. Not sure how desperate they are to make the summer season (the first movie was actually delayed from December 2008 to May 2009 for marketing purposes), but a holiday release worked out pretty well for Avatar. (Okay, the Star Trek crowd probably isn’t quite as Oscar-hungry, but why get drowned out by all those summer flicks?)
