This time, Abrams is teaming with screenwriter Billy Ray on the untitled project, which is said to be a mystery adventure. The project has been purchased by Paramount.

Abrams will be directing Star Trek 2, and those associated with the sequel are eager to get going, according to postings on Twitter. “I absolutely cannot fucking wait to get back aboard that ship,” tweeted Simon Pegg, Star Trek XI‘s Scotty. “She awaits you with open nacelles,” said Damon Lindelof in reply.

Meanwhile, Roberto Orci interacted with fans over at TrekMovie.com, saying that when it came to progress on Star Trek 2, it was “steady as she goes.” Another fan asked about Bruce Greenwood, hoping to know if Captain Pike would be making a return in the  next movie. “Are you getting this, Bob Orci?” the fan asked. When Orci replied “Yup,” the fan then asked “Does ‘Yup’ mean that you have got my message and/or Bruce Greenwood will appear in the movie.” “Yup,” replied Orci, no doubt to the sound of gnashing teeth.

It should be no surprise that fans hungry for news about Star Trek 2 will be in for another round of closely-guarded secrets, careful answers, and a bit of teasing as this was also the case with the first movie. It’s all part of the fun while waiting for the highly-anticipated sequel.

In Prometheus, “Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, returns to the genre he helped define. With Prometheus, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.”

Working on Prometheus was different than working on Lost for Lindelof, as he felt that the responsibility wasn’t quite as heavy for him. “Having done Lost for six years, I felt this tremendous responsibility because I’m one of the visionaries behind the show, so there’s no safety net below you,” he said. “When I got the call [from Ridley] I had this tremendous amount of relief and comfort that Ridley Scott is going to be the safety net.

“What ensued was a series of conversations where I was kind of interviewing Ridley to get a sense of the movie he wanted to make. Once I got a sense of that, then it was really about channeling that idea so that I was realizing his vision, as opposed to imposing my vision on it. That was my perspective.”

Just as in Alien, Prometheus will have an ensemble cast and that is something that will make the movie interesting for the audience as they will wonder which of the characters will survive and which will not. “I think one of the really cool things about the first Alien, if you watch it cold, Ripley is kind in the background like one of the crew members, and you’re like, ‘[Tom] Skerrit‘s [who played Captain Dallas] the hero of the movie,’ and he’s one of the first to go. And then you’re like, ‘It’s [the engineer played by] Harry Dean Stanton.’ And, no, he’s gone… and suddenly Sigourney Weaver, in the last forty minutes of the movie, is the only one left alive.

“I think the idea of building a really cool ensemble and again presenting the audience with like, ‘Who’s going to be left standing at the end of this movie? Maybe all of them. Probably not.’ [That's] part of the fun of what we set out to do.”

Prometheus will release in June of 2012.

TrekMovie.com spoke recently with writers Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who explained why it would be best to delay rather than put out an inferior product.

“We feel pretty strongly that the best version of this movie is directed by J.J. [Abrams],” said Lindelof. “And therefore we totally defer to his availability and when he wants to direct. This isn’t us passing the buck, but it is us passing the buck. Is it possible to start shooting the movie in September? Absolutely, we would totally be ready to go. But that doesn’t mean we are going to start in September, that is a question only J.J. can answer.”

“We made the commitment to each other on the first movie not to put that movie out unless we felt it was going to be the best version of the movie,” said Kurtzman. “And that meant taking our collective time. The first Trek had a release date of Christmas originally and we had to move it to the summer because it wasn’t going to be the best version, it was going to be rushed and it would have never been the movie that we put out there. Part of our responsibility to Trek is to make sure it isn’t rushed, that we take our time and do it right.’

Orci explained that a deadline for finishing the movie has not even been set. “Deadlines are great,” he said. “We haven’t had a deadline yet, and that is why we keep not finishing it. Give us a deadline and we’ll finish it. We only closed our deal with Paramount two or three months ago. So it is not just doing other things, it is ‘let’s find out when we are really going to go and then we will really get to work.’”

The writers admitted that the movie could be finished by June 29, 2012, but see no reason to rush it just to make that release date.

The trio updated the audience on the progress of the sequel. “As of right now, there is kind of a seventy-five or eighty page half script, half…I don’t know what it is,” said Lindelof.

“It is in a state of quantum flux,” said Orci.

The writers spoke about where the characters have gone and where the writers want them to go next. “The first one was about, ‘Spock is pretty emotional,’” explained Orci. “Well, he is younger And ‘Kirk, he is not a bookworm with legs who really understands the chain of command.’ Well he is not quite there yet. So you can get closer to what you know. It is all about earning what you know and learning that when we see them now they have been through a couple of adventures, but they don’t know each other either. There is still discovery, but there is also more familiarity. So, like the first one, it will feel like Trek, but it will also chart new ground.”

Star Trek 2 will also refer back to the destruction of Vulcan, and its impact of the Trek-verse. “We often referred to the destruction of Vulcan as the 9/11 moment of [Star Trek 2009],” said Lindelof. “There had to be an event that was so significant that it allows you to change the Trek universe, not just for the purposes of the first movie, but moving forward. The idea of saying, if you did something that huge, what would be the effect of that rippling outwards?”

The team admitted that there was a great deal of debate over destroying Vulcan, and it was not just done to show that “it’s our Star Trek now.”

Other topics of the discussion included blazing their own trail, researching old episodes for new ideas, time travel and villains.

The movie project, for which Lindelof will earn seven figures, came out of meetings with Sean Bailey, Disney production president, and senior executive Brigham Taylor.

No further details are available about 1952, but the project will encompass more than a movie, having “multiple platform aspirations.”

Lindelof will start on 1952 after Star Trek 2.

Meyer will be a director’s cut of the 1982 Wrath of Khan to the festival. Kurtzman, Orci and Lindelof will take the stage together and the topic of conversation will be Star Trek XI‘s success and the trio’s plans for Star Trek 2.

The 2011 Hero Complex Film Festival will take place June 9-12 at the Mann Chinese 6 in Hollywood. Tickets can be obtained here.

Cowboys & Aliens, which will be released July 29, stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. In the movie, space invaders land in the Old West and the townspeople will have more to fear than the controlling Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford).

The official description of the movie is below, followed by the YouTube clip:

“1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Daniel Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveller Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents—townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors—all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdy4eRKrf_8

Several familiar Star Trek XI alumni wrote Cowboys & Aliens; Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof.

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford star in the movie which is set in the Arizona Territory of 1873. In Cowboys & Aliens, “A stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution.” In Absolution, controlled by the “iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford),” no one “makes a move on its streets” unless Dolarhyde gives permission. But something will happen in Absolution that will be even more frightening than control by a local despot; the desert town will be attacked by invaders from the sky.

Other movies have tried to blend the Western and Sci-Fi genres, but have not done well. According to Orci, they have learned lessons from those movies. “…We’re playing it very straight,” he said. “That’s why the twist is that there’s aliens. There’s not another twist on top of that. Being funny about it or making sort of ironic casting choices or something would have been what they call a hat on a hat. And seeing what those movies did, without condemning them in any way, we knew we wanted to do something a little bit different and make sure that it really is – we bring you this – ‘We interrupt this movie to bring you this movie.’ Literally, this movie could keep going as a Western, and it would be a compelling story and everyone would be happy.  Harrison, I think, sometimes would prefer that there were no aliens in the movie.”

Why a Western? “Filmmakers love the Western because they can’t hide behind anything, unless you have aliens, of course,” said Orci. “It’s just very elemental. It’s truly like one of the most basic stories – you against an untamed environment, and attempting to get to the civilization that we all love and enjoy now.”

Will filmgoers see the classic features of a Western? “So in this, you know, the classic trope of a Western is a guy with no name comes into town, he says few words,” said Orci. “Normally it’s because he’s tough and he doesn’t want to give you the time of day.  In this case, it’s because he doesn’t remember who he is, because he was abducted by aliens.

“So any time you could find something like that, that actually you could twist in to the genre of sci-fi, that’s when we stuck to it. But we didn’t make a list and go, ‘Well, we have to have this or that or this or that.’ It’s only when it served the whole.”

Cowboys & Aliens will release July 29, 2011.

Star Trek XII, written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

There is no word yet on whether J.J. Abrams will return as director, although Paramount would like him to return.

Star Trek XII will release in June of 2012.

Last month, a meeting to plot out Star Trek XII included J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Bryan Burk and out of that meeting came a hint as to one of the characters to appear in the film.

Orci showed an iPad slide show, which included stills from Star Trek XI, snapshots of potential locations to use in Star Trek XII and the item that has started the online speculation, a photo of a suggested actress.

On the photo of the suggested actress, Orci had used his iPad to draw a Vulcan ear on the woman. Now fandom is curious, could this be a known Vulcan character, such as T’Pring, Saavik or even T’Pau? Or could it be someone brand-new to the Trek world?

While Saavik would appear to be too young at the time to be the Vulcan in question, T’Pring might be an interesting addition to the movie. If there had been a betrothal between Spock and T’Pring in childhood, she might be a problem when it comes to the Spock-Uhura romance, especially with the emphasis on needing to replenish the stock of Vulcans after the destruction of Vulcan. Even if not betrothed in childhood in this Trek universe, Spock might still be pressured to hook up with her in aid of increasing the Vulcan population.

It will be interesting to see if the character is T’Pring, or any other known Vulcan. Time will tell.