By It’s a meeting of nerd worlds – Hollywood Reporter confirms that Paramount has secured the rights to screen the trailer for the next movie in the Star Trek film franchise, Star Trek Beyond, before arguably the biggest movie of all time, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens next week. Star Wars director J.J. Abrams directed the first two movies in the reboot of the long-running franchise, Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness, before departing the third film in favor of The Force Awakens. He’s still attached to Beyond as a producer, and the film is still being developed by his production company, Bad Robot.
I’m not going to riff on the fact that the traditionally oppositional (at least as far as fandom is concerned) universes will come together, or muse on Trek vs. Wars, because that’s boring. That said, this is interesting – in some alternate universe somewhere, fans are eagerly awaiting the third, Abrams-directed movie in his Trek trilogy, while someone like, I don’t know, Martin Scorsese or George Lucas or whoever is finally debuting The Force Awakens to moviegoers. It’s perhaps an amusing bit of coincidence that audiences will get their first look at the latest chapter in a franchise that Abrams helped resurrect as they sit down to see arguably the most important bit of work in his entire career (give or take a Lost pilot).
Anyway, you already know everything you need to know about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, because you’ve had your tickets since the dawn of time. But if you just came out of some kind of cryogenic sleep or something, it opens in theaters Dec. 18 and stars all the people you recognize from the old movies (but older) and a bunch of new people (who are younger) and a little ball-shaped robot (who is adorable). Star Trek Beyond, directed by Justin Lin, is set to debut in July and stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana.
[via THR]