STXI Status

J.J. Abrams best friend Greg Grunberg is giving William Shatner a run for his money on being the best blabber about Star Trek XI. IGN caught up with the Heroes star and he told them that he doesn’t have the script yet, but that Abrams "was finishing it last week". On the subject of the day regarding if Abrams will direct or not, Grunberg noted how the answer keeps changing: One week he tells me he’s not sure. One week, he told me, ‘No. I’m definitely just producing.’ And then just last week he was like, ‘Man, I’m really excited to do it.’ I said, ‘Are you doing it?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ I mean, honestly, it’s like he’s still really up in the air. But he’s really happy with the script. I know that. Really, really happy.   

TrekMovie.com has already reported that February is the point where Trek XI could move from ‘development’ to getting a green light (or not) and going into pre-production. In the last few weeks we have been getting various reports from sources around the studio that things are progressing and preperations are already being made to start some preliminary work the coming weeks. Now comes this from today’s Hollywood Reporter: Over at Paramount Pictures, for example, there is now a question whether J.J. Abrams will direct "Star Trek XI." …Although Paramount is hopeful that Abrams will captain the Starship Enterprise, sources said the director likely will make his decision later this week.

EW.com got a moment to talk Star Trek with JJ Abrams after his panel at the New York Times’ 6th Annual Arts & Leisure Weekend. Abrams confirmed TrekMovie.com’s earlier report that there is a draft of the script complete and that it will be ‘trimmed soon’. As usual JJ would not reveal any plot details but did address the contentious issue of who Trek XI is directed at. Abrams made it clear that they have a wide aim: On the one hand, for people who love Star Trek, the fix that they will get will be really satisfying…For people who’ve never seen it or know it vaguely, I think they will enjoy it equally, because the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek. I would actually prefer [that] people don’t know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind.’

In the recent story about comments from Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman we noted that Variety had stated that JJ Abrams was ‘slated to direct’ Star Trek XI. This of course would be newsworthy if it were true because just recently Abrams told TrekMovie he had not yet decided and would not decide until the script was complete. Some other sites have taken the Variety article as confirmation from Dauman that Abrams has made that decision, but it appears that this is a bit premature. TrekMovie has a transcript of Dauman’s comments to the CSFB conference and he made no mention of Abrams at all. The ‘Abrams directing’ line was added by Variety, something which they have done before and to which Abrams has noted they were wrong on. TrekMovie has also checked with a source inside Paramount who attributes it to ‘lazy journalism’. Although everyone assumes Abrams will be the director, it is still officially undecided.

TV Guide has an interview with JJ Abrams that focuses on M:I:3, which is released this week on DVD. However, they do throw in a couple of Trek questions TVGuide.com: Changing topics, where do you stand on the Star Trek feature? Is there any framework in place, a setting, characters…? Abrams: The framework is firmly in place, the script is being written now, and we are incredibly enthusiastic about it.