Update: Chu’s reps deny he’s in the running for “Star Trek 3,” while a fairly random site says Rupert Wyatt is “virtually a lock at this stage in the game.”
A couple of weeks back an offhand comment by Zachary Quinto set nerds into a lather as it was suggested that J.J. Abrams—tasked with helming “Star Wars: Episode 7“—was somehow going to find time to direct “Star Trek 3” in time for a 2016 release. Keep dreaming, we said. And it would appear that our smugness was well-placed as, if this latest rumor is anything to go by, Paramount is already looking at other candidates.
The dudes over at Latino Review are reporting that Jon M. Chu, the man behind “G.I. Retaliation,” is a “contender” to direct the third installment in the “Star Trek” films for a 2016 release. This is all well and good, except for the fact that he’s committed right now to some other big franchises. Most notably, it was just under a couple of months ago that Paramount tagged him to helm “G.I. Joe 3“—which we presume is a series they don’t want sitting around too long—while he’s also got “Masters Of The Universe” brewing at Sony. So we’d reckon he’s a guy they like a lot at the moment, though figuring out if he can fit in or even if he’s interested remains to be seen.
While you battle out that choice below—we’d imagine hardcore Trekkies will have a conniption—Karl Urban is hoping “Star Trek” boldly goes into some more original territory for the third film. “What I really believe we should do now is strive for originality,” he told IGN. “In ‘Star Trek Into Darkness‘ we took one of the most revered and loved adversaries of the Enterprise and put him in there, and did a story that had all of these wonderful nods to films from the past, and episodes from the past. I really think that what we should do from here, in my personal opinion, is strive to be original. Strive to be something different and new.”
He adds that he wants to go back to the TV show’s focus on space exploration and he’s eager for “a fresh take, a new energy” from a different director. But is Chu really that guy? He doesn’t strike us as a visionary, but he can’t have a huge amount of creative freedom on the ‘G.I. Joe’ movies, so who knows? Anyway, debate below and let us know who’d want to see take over from Abrams. But whatever happens, things won’t get too wild as franchise mainstays Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have been hired again to write the script according to THR.