HARRY HERE - none of this is true. This is all the product of terrible reporting. JJ is making STAR WARS and the writer bit on Star Trek is also wrong. FYI.
Hey Yo, Draven here.
Devin Faraci over at Badass Digest is reporting that THOR scribes, Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz have been pegged to write the next installment of the new STAR TREK franchise. The writers of the first two films, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, will still be involved and had a big role in picking Miller and Stenz.
This isn’t a major surprise as Orci and Kurtzman have become two of the most in demand screenwriters (for better or worse) and are attached to a lot of projects. As far as Stentz and Miller go, I wasn’t a huge fan of THOR but that had more to do with the direction than the screenplay. The only other films they have had made are AGENT CODY BANKS and a credit on X-MEN: FIRST CLASS but that had a host of writers. The two are also attached to TOP GUN 2 and Josh Trank’s reboot of THE FANTASTIC FOUR. So not a whole lot to go on unless you consider their involvement on TV shows (ANDROMEDA, TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and FRINGE).
Faraci also notes that Paramount wants STAR TREK 3 in theaters in time for STAR TREK’s 50th anniversary in 2016, so work on the sequel is going to start soon. I know that STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS was and is still very divisive amongst fans (as I am sure you guys will show in the talkbacks below). It was also a bit of a box office disappointment, grossing $225 million domestically on a reported budget of $190 million. Obviously, that isn’t enough of a disappointment to kill this current incarnation of TREK but Paramount wants to move faster than they did between the first two films.
The other big bomb Faraci drops in his report is that former TREK director, J.J. Abrams, is unhappy about being forced to film STAR WARS: EPISODE VII in England and Faraci is hearing rumors that he is “on the verge” of dropping off of the movie. Faraci isn’t reporting that is what is going to happen - but that it is a rumor he continues to hear right now, so take that news as it was intended.
We should be hearing more news on all of the above stories soon, so stay tuned. D23 is going to be very interesting this year.
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