jj abrams (10 posts)

Industrial Light and Magic / Paramount Pictures

Dammit, Jim, we're reading a studio announcement, not looking into a crystal ball.

Which is why just about the only thing we know about the Star Trek sequel—other than the fact that it's definitely happening—is that it's finally landed a release date.

Paramount has selected the star date of June 29, 2012, to unleash the second installment of its blockbuster franchise on a nation of eager Trekkers.

Everything else, though, is anyone's guess.

All the principals—including the dynamic duo of Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, and requisite candy Zoe Saldana—are expected back, but there's no word on who will play the baddie. And if it's the movie's title you're looking for, keep looking.

Which isn't to say we don't know some things...

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Stephen Vaughan/ Paramount Pictures

Didn't see this coming.

Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams have signed on with Paramount Pictures to produce the fourth installment of Mission Impossible, according to Variety.

As you may recall, couch-jumping and other circumstances surrounding the previous film in the series helped precipitate a very public rift between Cruise and Viacom's Sumner Redstone, which ended the megastar's 14-year-long relationship with Paramount.

At the time Redstone told the Wall Street Journal, "[Cruise]'s recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

But that's so 2006. These days Redstone is sounding highly complimentary about the celeb, Abrams is hot off Paramount's Star Trek and Cruise remains one of the most bankable stars on the planet.

So when you put it that way, this seems totally possible. Look for it in 2011.

• Reese Witherspoon is looking to make a drug comedy. No, not like Half-Baked. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Pharm Girl is an "aspirational comedy" by the Bad Santa screenwriters about a woman and the pharmaceutical industry, which does make it sound a bit like Half-Baked.

• Jerry Seinfeld wants to help your relationship. Variety reports the comedian has made a deal to create and distribute multiple localized versions of a reality series called The Marriage Ref, in which couples put their problems in the hands of people who truly understand emotional pain: comedians and celebrities. Let the healing begin.

Zachary Quinto's Spock tells us, "You will experience fear."

Actually, we just felt pumped.

The latest trailer for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot has all the stuff you'd hope for and more in a trailer: epic battles, bloody barfights, deep-space couplings, family drama and plenty of gleaming hardware. Oh, and a well-cast bunch of actors to replace the iconic original crew.

What's this trailer like? Eric Bana's villain says it best: "Fire everything!" That pretty much sums up the plan here: Resistance is futile to the onslaught of awesomeness.

But that's just us. What do you think?

Entertainment Weekly

J.J. Abrams and William Shatnerstill aren't on the same hailing frequency. 

This time in the maddening, media-enabled relationship between the Star Trek reinventor and the Star Trek icon, it's Abrams talking to Entertainment Weekly about Shatner talking to him, Abrams, via the William Shatner channel.

"I don't know how my life has become a thing where William Shatner talks to me through YouTube," Abrams tells the magazine, which scored a cover photo of the filmmaker's new Trek stars, Zachary Quinto as the young Mr. Spock and Chris Pine as the young James T. Kirk. 

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Rena Durham/ZUMAPRess.com, CBS

Don't worry: Chris Pine, who plays a young James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie, won't be pulling a Shatner. As in, he won't be imitating the famous...dramatic....pauses...of his '60s predecessor.

"Really what [William] Shatner did was very specific and very unique to him," Pine told E! News this week, while promoting Bottle Shock, an indie about Napa Valley vintners. "I think if I went to mimic-ville, I went to try to do Shatner, it would not have been smart."

It looks like Pine will, however, take Shatner's example when it comes to getting it on with alien ladies. Keep reading for scoop on interplanetary love, Trek technology and more:

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EW.com/ Paramount Pictures

The new Star Trek movie isn't due out until next May, but director J.J. Abrams recently dropped a few scoopy tidbits to E! News. And fans attending Comic-Con in San Diego next week can get their hands on four new posters (at left, all put together), with slick pics of Eric Bana, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine.

When we caught Abrams at the Television Critics Association tour this week, he talked about his franchise reboot and the early days of Spock, Kirk, Uhura and the Enterprise. Here's the deal:

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