Star Trek 3 Moves Closer To Becoming A Reality With Plot And Production Details

Boldly going where exactly?

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

StarfleetThe story of Star Trek 3 has been hurry up and wait. It seems like there’s a bunch of movement, followed by a period of inactivity. Surely that’s just what we in the public sector hear and there is a more continual progress behind the scenes, but it’s starting to look like the ball is really getting rolling. Just the other day, star Zachary Quinto said he expects production to begin within six months, and now we’ve found some additional details about what this film will actually look like, and when we might see it.

TrekMovie.com has a new report that updates the status of the film. There’s nothing super Earth shattering, as this article mostly confirms other news and rumors that have been floating about, but it’s nice to have a bit more of an idea of the direction this film is heading.

Following on the heels of the news that the Star Trek 3 script is now finished, it sounds like the folks at Paramount have given it a warm reception, and have even penciled in a date to get the cameras rolling. Right now the film is slated to get underway on February 15, 2015, which definitely jives with what Quinto said earlier. And despite there being no official word, it’s looking more and more like Roberto Orci, who wrote and produced earlier installments of the rebooted franchise, will in fact be at the helm, making his directorial debut, when the mission blasts offs next year.

Even with all of this forward motion, the film doesn’t have an official green light from the studio, but while they work on hashing out the budget, preproduction is getting underway. Orci and his team are already working on things like wardrobe, special effects, and even kicking around casting ideas, discussing names they’d like to see play new characters.

Star Trek Into DarknessWe’ve been hearing since the end of Star Trek Into Darkness that Star Trek 3 would see the crew of the Enterprise actually begin the iconic five-year mission from the original series, and this latest report confirms that as well, though augments that somewhat. The story apparently picks up “well into” their journey, significant amounts of time have passed, and Earth plays no real role in the film.

For long time Trek fans, that’s good news to hear. The first two films seem like they’ve been building towards that, like we’ve been killing time until the crew is actually out there in deep space, exploring uncharted territories and mixing it up with various alien peoples.

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, and many assumed that Paramount would schedule the release to coincide with this momentous milestone. While there is no exact date pinned down, it does appear that they still intend to get this into theaters by then, as sources tell Trek Movie that the studio has its eye on a summer 2016 release. They also expect an official announcement to come down sometime soon. Both of the previous films hit theaters in May, so it’s possible, depending on the timeline, that Star Trek 3 could follow that same path, but there’s also a great deal of wiggle room, depending on how the production process goes.