Roberto Orci Bails On Power Rangers, Find Out What That Means For Star Trek 3
This article is more than 2 years old
I’m not one of the people looking forward to Lionsgate’s big screen adaptation of Power Rangers. There must be folks out there who think a serious, big budget, tentpole style remake of a cheap, silly kids show from your youth is a good idea, but that doesn’t make it any less baffling. Production, however, just received a big blow as Roberto Orci has terminated his involvement in the project due to scheduling conflicts with directing Star Trek 3.
Deadline reports that Orci has vacated his executive producer slot in order to focus on making his directorial debut with Star Trek 3. We still haven’t heard official word that he has the job, which will be the first time he ever helms anything, but if he’s willing to bail on a hefty payday like Power Rangers, it seems like a good indication that he has the job. At some point Paramount will probably confirm this, and Trek fans officially begin hating on his involvement.
Even though Orci is gone, Lionsgate and Saban Entertainment, the company that created the spandex-clad, super powered team of teen heroes, still plan to release their film on July 22, 2016. That’s a bold move, considering they’ll face off with the next Bourne movie, as well as the next chapter in the rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise. But X-Men: First Class and Thor scribes Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz will continue to hammer out a script, and they seem confident that they have something people will want to see.
Star Trek 3, on the other hand, appears to be rolling along nicely. The script is reportedly finished, the studio has an eye on February 15, 2015 as a potential start date for production, and, despite not having the green light just yet, Orci and company have even reportedly been talking about casting as the budget gets hashed out. That sounds like progress to us.
We have mixed feelings on the idea of Star Trek 3, as many of you do. Star Trek Into Darkness was, lets just say underwhelming and left much to be desired. That sounds diplomatic, right? And Orci, who wrote and produced the previous films, gets a lot of the credit for their failings in the eyes of many fans, rightly or wrongly. With that, and the fact that he has zero directorial experience, it’s hard to get super excited about this. We’ll still watch it and keep and eye on development, but you better believe we’ll approach this with a healthy skepticism.
That said, one thing that does sound promising is that finally, after two damn movies, we’ll get to see the Enterprise and her crew on their traditional five-year mission. According to the latest report that we’ve heard, the script picks up with the team in the middle of their journey, and it will be nice, if nothing else, to finally spend all of our time in space and not on Earth. We know what Earth looks like, we watch Star Trek for deep space adventure, not to run around London.
There’s no hard date set for Star Trek 3, but Paramount is reportedly aiming for summer 2016, which would coincide with the 50th anniversary of Star Trek’s 1966 debut.
