Out promoting Run Fatboy Run, Simon Pegg continues taking Star Trek questions. Regarding the size of his role in the film, the actor tells AICN he worked on the film for five weeks and “the rough and tumble chirpy engineer from Linlithgow is very much in the film.” He also talked to AICN about Abrams approach to Trek and to EW about fan reaction to his casting.
The last director to go to the final frontier was Stuart Baird for Star Trek Nemesis. Baird (who is an Oscar nominated editor) only got the Trek gig as payback for help he provided re-cutting Paramount’s M:I:II and Tomb Raider movies. After Nemesis bombed, the TNG cast have made no secret about how they feel about their final director. The latest example is in a new SciFi Pulse interview with LeVar Burton and TOS star Nichelle Nichols.
As reported in our recent CelebWatch, on Thursday JJ Abrams attended the US-Ireland Alliance pre-Oscar party that honored Trek alum Colm Meaney. ReelzChannel interviewed the director and got him to talk about the new Star Trek movie. Abrams said they were using the rainy weather to their advantage and also spoke about the release date change and possibly using Meaney in a sequel. VIDEO below.
In Empire Magazine’s ‘25 Most Exciting Movies of 2008‘ feature, Star Trek director JJ Abrams speaks briefly about the film he is currently shooting. Abrams tells Empire “I’m completely respectful of the Star Trek canon and I feel that there’s a great movie to be made.” And is Abrams worried about us famously persnickety fans?…nope….
When JJ Abrams comes to TrekMovie.com for a live chat or speaks at some tech conference, he shows off his geek cred. But, of course his plan for the new Star Trek is to appeal to everyone so he has to shed that when he talks to the ‘norms.’ Which is exactly what you can see with some quotes buried in one of those ‘Movies to look forward to in 2008’ previews over at USA Today where Abrams is quoted saying…
The JJ Abrams/Bryan Burk-produced monster movie is still in its second week, but Paramount is already hungry for more. Variety is reporting that Abrams (along with director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard) is already in talks for a sequel. The low-budget scarer has already grossed over $80 Million and has yet to open in many overseas markets. So far it is the biggest movie of the year and holds the record for best January opening of all time.
In the last week we have learned more about the ultra-secret new Star Trek movie being made by JJ Abrams than we learned in the previous 3 months. We have a picture of the Enterprise, a trailer, Q&A w/ Orci, Q&A w/ Abrams and Crew, a (fuzzy) shot from the bridge, a viral site (w/ secret images)…we got a lot. And yet, like after watching a great episode of his hit show Lost…it is all still a mystery.
Answers to questions posed in the submissions thread for the JJ Abrams live chat will be posted HERE IN THIS THREAD LIVE (starting at 1PM Pacific Time).
Star Trek producer/director JJ Abrams (and members of his team) will be doing a live ‘chat’ from the set of Star Trek on Friday at 1PM (Pacific) UPDATE: First set of questions chosen from those submitted below. Answers will be posted HERE.
Star Trek producer/director JJ Abrams called in for an interview with the Howard Stern Show and being that it was Howard Stern, questions ranged from “is your wife hot?” to “did you bang Jennifer Garner?” to “how much money do you make?” to “is Tom Cruise nuts?” But he also took some serious questions about the writers strike, people getting sick watching Cloverfield and, of course, Star Trek (and Shatner). See below for some select quotes and the full audio interview. [UPDATE: Abrams also called in to Opie and Anthony Show…details and audio below]
JJ Abrams called into the the Adam Carolla Show on Thursday morning to talk Cloverfield and Star Trek. In the interview Abrams joked you might need Dramamine to deal with Cloverfield’s shaky cam style. He also talked about the origin of the film title. Regarding Trek he discussed why Shatner has not been cast and how he is approaching the new Star Trek film. Details and audio below.
Starting Friday many Trekkies will be heading to the theaters to see the new Star Trek trailer playing with Cloverfield. However, you just might want to stay and check out the overly-hyped but thoroughly entertaining JJ Abrams-produced monster movie. Review below contains some spoilers
The latest Entertainment Weekly counts down the 50 Smartest People in Hollywood and Star Trek producer-director J.J. Abrams comes in at number 29. EW cites Abrams nabbing of the Trek franchise as evidence of his smarts. The list includes various agents, executives, and creative professionals with Abrams beating out the likes of Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro, Sascha Baron Cohen (aka Borat) and Amy Powell (a Paramount marketing executive). Topping the list were three other directors Judd Apatow, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron.
Tonight brings news of another big Hollywood deal for the members of the Trek team – this time a new sci-fi show for Fox. The trades are reporting that Star Trek director J.J. Abrams, along with co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and executive producer Bryan Burk, have sold a paranormal drama series called Fringe to Fox. The quartet will each have executive producer credits and there is a search on for a showrunner. The show is described as a mix of The X-Files and Altered States with (according to Abrams) "a slight Twilight Zone vibe." According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fringe was born and written between Star Trek production meetings.
Although Star Trek is currently their focus, the new Star Trek team are still in high demand. First up is director J.J. Abrams who has sold his first network show as part of his Warner Brothers TV deal. According to the Hollywood Reporter ABC has bought a pilot for a one-hour dramedy to be executive produced (along with Abrams and Bryan Burk) by Jill Soloway (Six Feet Under, Grey’s Anatomy). The show, titled Boundaries, centers on a failing cable access shrink who rediscovers her true purpose when she is forced to take a job as a mobile notary. If it gets a series commitment it will be Abrams fifth show for ABC (after Alias, Lost, What About Brian and Six Degrees).
The first ever article on this site was about the announcement that Star Trek producer/director J.J. Abrams had inked two major deals after his contract with Disney ended. One deal was with Paramount for multiple pictures and the other was with Warner Brothers for TV. Since then Abrams has been juggling his TV and film duties, but according to Slate.com Paramount is now getting the better part of the deal. Abrams reportedly got $10 million a year from Warner but has only announced a single project (a medical drama for HBO) in the 14 months since the deal was struck. Slate notes that another TV project will soon be forthcoming, but that the new Star Trek film at Paramount "is going to become [Abrams] life" for the next 15 months. Slate quotes a studio exec saying of the dueling deals, "somebody had to get hurt" and that somebody appears to be Warner Brothers. Another development may make Abrams even more important to Paramount soon….
Star Trek producer/director JJ Abrams was spotted chatting with Star Wars producer/director George Lucas, and a cross-franchise photo captured the event.
Last March there was a rumor going around that J.J. Abrams was thinking about Jennifer Garner for a role as Spock’s love interest in his new Star Trek movie. Now the "Alias" leading lady tells Rotten Tomatoes that she ‘absolutely’ willing to put on Vulcan ears for Trek, saying "Anything J.J. asked me to do ever, that’s a clear ‘Don’t even worry, the answer’s yes.’ I owe him." Abrams is known to like to stick with people he knows so it isn’t a crazy idea (although he may have a hard time choosing between Garner and his Felicity star Keri Russell who Abrams thinks would make a great Klingon). In addition to being ready for Trek Garner said she would also be up any J.J. Abrams Alias movie, noting "I think we’d all sign on. I mean, it’s all in his crazy brain." Garner has been keeping in practice. She stars along with Jamie Foxx as an FBI agent (pictured) in the thriller "The Kingdom" opening later this month.
According to sources in today’s Frettabladid, there are very good chances that the new Star Trek movie will be (in part) filmed in Iceland. Two production companies, Pegasus & Saga Film are still batting over the film, and now Paramount Pictures have sent over plans for the budget and the two companies are looking it over. Both parties are optimistic that a deal will be made and the new Star Trek will be coming to the small island nation.The article also states that director J.J. Abrams is coming to Iceland to look at the locations Paramount scouts looked over in June. (previous story).
In an article about a new film project being set up at Paramount by J.J. Abrams company Bad Robot, Variety states shooting will start on the new Star Trek feature on November 5th. This is the first time I have seen a specific date, but it is in line with other recent reports both in the media and from sources at the studio. So assuming this all pans out, we are 89 days away cameras rolling. This would make it exactly 32 months since the last time any Star Trek was shot at Paramount (principle photography on Star Trek Enterprise ceased on March 5th, 2005).
Entertainment Weekly had a Comic-Con round table discussion with Star Trek director J.J. Abrams and his Spocks: Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto. When asked why to include Nimoy in the film, Abrams gave some insight into the film’s story: The story needed his participation for a number of reasons. One, the plot. In many ways, the story revolves around the character of Spock. Two, I think it’s critical if we’re going to look at reintroducing these characters — I didn’t want to disrespect what had come before, for those who care about that. But we’re making this movie for people who don’t care about Star Trek too. This isn’t about pleasing the fans, this is about making a great film. And to do that, you have to both please the fans and please the people who’ve never seen Star Trek. So having Leonard in the film shows that this film exists in a continuum of Trek history, as opposed to an absolute, page 1 reinvention. Abrams was also asked if he was ready to take on this project and such a big franchise…
It seems that JJ Abrams is frustrated that people haven’t found the hidden websites for the monster movie he is producing. He tells AICN that all this ethanhaas stuff is actually not his movie. This is a bit strange because it was Paramount that was taking down videos from that site posted on YouTube…so I guess they are for some other new mysterious Paramount movie. JJ’s message… Regarding the online stuff you posted: yeah, we’re doing some fun stuff on the web. But, obviously, if the movie doesn’t kick some massive ASS, who gives a rat’s about what’s online? So as you can imagine, we’re focusing mostly on THAT. For what it’s worth, the only site of ours that people have even FOUND is the 1-18-08.com site. The others (like the Ethan Haas sites) have nothing to do with us. OK TrekMovie.com readers…I want you to go out there and find those website and send them in via the tipline…your country needs you!
No more need for crappy pirated video of the new Abrams movie trailer, Paramount have officially released the trailer and it is up at Apple (click image)
It is now confirmed that the ethanhaaswasright.com game site (and blog) is definately part of the Paramount marketing campaign for the new J.J. Abrams horror/monster movie (code named ‘Cloverfield’). Community member Markus has been playing the game and has collected some of the payoff videos (unfortunately Paramount have taken some down but there are still two up).[UPDDATE: OK we were wrong….the EthanHaas site is not part of the movie, but we still cannot figure why Paramount were removing videos from it off YouTube]
Here a leaked trailer for the JJ Abrams produced ‘Cloverfield’ monster movie. It is bad shaky cam footage of a trailer which itself is supposed to be like bad shaky cam footage. UPDATE: Official version of trailer now online!
We have another follow-up on the rumors of a JJ Abrams teaser trailer running with Transformers (opening wide July 2). It is confirmed that there is a trailer, but it is definately not for his new Star Trek movie. In actuality it is for the mysterious JJ Abrams horror/monster movie project called ‘Cloverfield’ (possibly just a codename) which we reported on in February. People at Paramount still will not talk on the record but sources tell TrekMovie.com that the buzz about the film is all part of a kind of viral marketing push. Cloverfieldmovie.com was redirecting to Paramount, but now it is not anymore (the domain was purchased earlier this year shortly before word of the project was first leaked). [UPDATE: Abrams will produce the film along with Bryan Burk. Drew Goddard (Buffy, Angel, Alias, Lost) is writing and Matt Reeves (Felicity) is directing).] Here is a description of the trailer[UPDATE plus a link to a leaked version]:
There is another one of those rumors on the internets that there is a ‘Star Trek’ teaser trailer attached to the Transformers film, premiering next week. I can categorically say that this is 100% not true. There is however a possible kernal of JJ Abrams truth to the rumor. Apparently there is a teaser trailer for the JJ Abrams produced horror movie ‘Cloverfield’ that is out there and apparently will be shown with Transformers [see previous story]. Although it has been confirmed by sources that Cloverfield is a real JJ Abrams project, Paramount are still not even acknowledging that the film exists and apparently this whole hubbub is all by design (it is still not even certain if ‘Cloverfield’ is a real titled). It seems they are trying to build some sort of buzz for this ‘secret’ project. Anyway…no more need to send in any more tips about this ‘JJ Abrams’ trailer…mystery solved. Once the film is officially released next week we will hopefully have more information on the trailer and the project. The first ‘Star Trek’ teaser’ is a long way off. MORE: Click for ALL Cloverfield coverage
At a writers workshop held in Santa Monica on Thursday, Star Trek co-writer Alex Kurtzman said that he and writing partner Roberto Orci are writing on a new TV pilot with JJ Abrams. The three worked together in TV before on the show Alias and it would be the writers first time back on TV since that show ended. Abrams has a multi-million dollar TV production deal with Warner Brothers, but so far has only announced one show for HBO (a medical drama). After the event Roberto Orci told TrekMovie that it was not a Star Trek show and that they still don’t know if the show is for network TV, HBO or cable. He did say it will probably have some sci-fi/genre elements (kind of like Lost and Alias have some genre elements but are not ‘spaceship scifi’), but they are still working out the details. If the show follows the usual pilot season schedule then it wouldn’t really kick into production until Spring of 2008, which would be after Star Trek enters its post production phase.
Last weekend marked the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars. As these History Channel clips show, Trek XI producer and director JJ Abrams is a fan of both ‘Star’ franchises