STAR TREK 2 (Update by Abrams)

• STAR TREK 2

J.J. Abrams was at FOX's portion of the TCA (TelevisionCritics Association) press tour this past week to promote his new TV series,Alcatraz.

Naturally many memebers of the press wanted to find outabout Abrams latest in Star Trek 2, in which he confirmed that the film will gointo production this week.

Star Trek Cast 

It's been announced the new Trek film will be released in3D, but it will be post-converted. Abrams explained, " We're shooting onfilm, and the reason for that is I wanted to shoot for anamorphic, and youcan't shoot 3D anamorphic."

Amusingly, someone asked Abrams if he'd done tests to seehow his semi-infamous lens flares would look in converted 3D, to which hereplied, "I've had some people make fun of me about that!"

The Original Cast of Star Trek

He then said, "We've done some tests. Not only lensflare tests, but we've done 3D tests and stuff. We actually converted a bunchof the original movie, which looked really good. So that was the thing thatmade me feel like maybe that would be okay. But I didn't want to shoot themovie digitally. I didn't want to shoot it spherically. It will be converted,for those who want to see it, in 3D. But I wanted to match the look of thefirst one and shoot it anamorphically."

Abrams noted, "I did not fight for the 3D. It's somethingthat the studio wanted to do and I didn't want to do it. And then when I sawthe first movie converted in sections, I thought it actually looked reallycool. So I was okay with their doing it, as long as I could shoot the movie theway I wanted to in anamorphic film. So those who want to see it in 3D – whichlooked pretty cool – they can do it. And for those who want to see it in 2D,they can do that too."

Benedict Cumberbatch

Abrams is famously secretive about his projects. Somereports have been calling Benedict Cumberbatch (he just joined the castrecently and is known for playing Sherlock on the BBC series) the villain ofthe new Star Trek film (including some speculation about whether he's playingKhan or not). But when Abrams was asked today why he felt Cumberbatch was theright guy to play the film's villain, he replied, "Who said he's ourvillain?"

While he wouldn't give any details on Cumberbatch's role, hewent on to say, "Honestly, he's just an incredible actor. If you've seenthe work in Sherlock, he's just got incredible skills. He's an amazing stageactor. Did an amazing Frankenstein. He's brilliant. You try to cast people thatare great. We got lucky. I just loved his work and thought that he was perfectfor what we needed."

While Leonard Nimoy appeared in Abrams' first Trek film,neither he nor any of the original cast will in the sequel. Commenting on whythat is, Abrams said, "It was just sort of what the story of the movierequired. I think that with everything, you respond to what you're trying todo; what story you're trying to tell."