Star Trek XI screenwriter Robert Orci recently sat down with a number of media outlets to discuss the state of the new Trek film.

"It shoots in November," Orci told IGN. "We're in preproduction right now and just started. We're casting and hoping to have somebody by Comicon -- we'll find out. The script is written, and [it comes out] Christmas '08."

Orci couldn't reveal anything about the film's plot, but did describe the challenge of developing a story that would interest both long-time Trek fans and people new to the franchise. "[If] you're a fan who's been tracking a lot of questions about people's histories and about the history of Starfleet, there's various gaps in the canon that if you were to get online and sample what people would want to see, you'd see some overlap in terms of what any fan who knows Trek would see. But the flipside of it is we want to make sure that this movie is absolutely for nonfans as well. In a way it's going to be two different movies -- if you're a fan, you're going to see a different movie. If you're a fan, you're seeing the black stripes of the zebra, and if you're not a fan you're going to see the white stripes. That was actually an amazing challenge, to see if that was even possible, and I think, hope, pray that we did it."

At the Sci-Fi Wire, Orci was asked about casting rumors involving big-name stars such as Matt Damon and Adrien Brody. The screenwriter would only comment with a smile that he'd "read all those rumors, too," but then at the IESB elaborated that the filmmakers might not even want to cast established stars. "[The] star of the movie is Star Trek, you know, so another way to think of it is we feel confident in what the material is and what the paradigm of the movie is that we’re not trying to shove an Academy Award winner down your throat to sell it. Which doesn’t mean that we might not end up there but it's not our first place to go there with that."

Finally, the Sci-Fi Wire asked Orci whether the film was being seen as a launching pad for a possible new TV show. "I'm sure CBS is thinking about that," Orci said. "That's not [something] we're thinking about. We're just thinking about the movie. Certainly, I don't know how they could not think about that."

For more from Orci, check out the full interviews at IGN, the Sci-Fi Wire and the IESB.

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