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There's no denying it: British Office star Ricky Gervais and Star Trek director J.J. Abrams are locked in a bromance. Evidence of this bromance surfaced when Abrams praised Gervais' upcoming comedy The Invention of Lying.
Ricky Gervais proves, once again, that he is the master. Not only of comedy, but social commentary. The Invention Of Lying is as funny as it is biting, wholly original, and surprisingly moving. Is there such thing as important comedy? Turns out there is, and this is it.
Then Gervais turned around and praised Abrams.
Star Trek was my favourite film of this year. He's a genius, he's like the new [Steven] Spielberg. And he said [Lying] was an important comedy. It's embarrassing talking about it but I put it on my website immediately!
Turns out the bromance started years ago when Gervais was cast in Abrams's TV show Alias. And since then, Gervais admits Abrams has tried to cast him in other projects, including an unspecified role in Star Trek.
[Abrams] offered me a couple of parts I couldn't do, one in Mission: Impossible and one in Star Trek itself but I couldn't do them because I was busy. I'll work with him again one day and I've thanked him, I've thanked him very much.
Hug it out already, you two!
Posted 09.11.09 by Ryan -
Missed Star Trek in IMAX? Considering Star Trek's extremely limited IMAX run upon its initial release, you're not alone. Even so, Star Trek still managed to set IMAX sales records, meaning another limited run for J.J.Abrams's sci-fi mega-hit is opening today, playing in 85 theaters around the country until September 18.
For those that forgot the omnipresent nature of the Star Trek marketing campaign, enjoy the IMAX trailer below:
For a list of cities and IMAX theaters where Star Trek is playing, visit here.
Posted 09.04.09 by Ryan -
Plans for a fourth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise are picking up steam. It was only a few weeks ago that it was announced that J.J. Abrams will be joining Tom Cruise in making Mission: Impossible IV. Abrams directed Mission: Impossible III, but it's unclear at this point whether he will also be directing M:I IV or whether he's only producing.
Now, there is news that M:I IV is one step closer to being actualized as Cruise and Abrams have hired Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec to write the screenplay for the film based on an Abrams idea. While they are relative unknowns in motion picture circles, Applebaum and Nemec were co-executive producers on the Abrams-created TV series Alias for four seasons. Abrams told Variety:
I’ve been looking forward to working with Josh and Andre again for years. Their sense of balance between character and action is wonderful, which I know is hugely important to Tom (Cruise) as well. We’re off to an exciting start, so, as usual, fingers crossed.
Cruise is actively involved in the production process of M:I IV, but there's no word whether he will star in the film as Ethan Hunt, his character from the first three films.
Posted 08.10.09 by BrentJS -
With Star Trek screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci already working on a sequel, Simon Pegg, who plays Trek's engineer Scotty, feels pretty confident that the sequel is not far away.
I know the writers are busy thinking about it. I don't really know anything about the story, or if I'm in a bigger role, but I'd imagine we'll be back this time next year. That's not official, but I reckon it's probably about 18 months away from being in the cinema.
Pegg's not the only one who's excited for the sequel. Director J.J. Abrams has said that the possibilities for the next Trek are limitless.
Posted 07.06.09 by Ryan -
With Star Trek on track to become one of the most successful movies of 2009, if not the most successful, talk of a sequel has already begun.
Director J.J. Abrams thinks that the next Trek movie has no limitations and told SciFiWire that the sequel could either be entirely new or a remake of past adventures:
The great thing is we're all open to anything. I think the fun of where we are with Trekis that it can and should just be fully explored. So I think to limitourselves to only new adventures would be a mistake. But I also thinkwe want to take advantage of this moment and figure out what's the mostexciting version for the new audience as well.
Trek screenwriter Roberto Orci concurs:
As you can imagine every kind of opinion has been expressed in relationto the movie, so there have been both red lights, green lights, yellowlights, the gamut. What they have done is very quickly identified thefork in the road, which is to do a completely original story or toharmonize with canon the way we did in the first movie, where some ofthe events overlapped with the original universe and were the same evenif time travel hadn’t happened and some of the harmonies were reversed,like Spock with Uhura instead of Kirk.
So if the sequel can cover previous material does that mean fans will get to see Khan in the Trek sequel?
50/50? Is that a boring answer?
Most Trekkies would say, "No." Especially if Javier Bardem plays the role.
Posted 06.29.09 by Ryan -
Both Tom Cruise and Mission: Impossible III director J. J. Abrams will return for the fourth entry in the series. At this point, though, Abrams is only signed to produce. He told TV Guide:
I am incredibly honored that Tom has invited me back as a producer on Mission: Impossible 4. Tom and I have come up with a really cool idea we are pursuing.
Abrams may still sign on to direct M:I 4 or he may choose to direct the sequel to his summer hit, Star Trek.
Posted 06.11.09 by Ryan -
With Star Trek opening tonight, promotions have reached a fever pitch. Despite all the weird gimmicks deployed by others, Burger King really does stand out in its willingness to go where no one had really ever considered going before.
The fast food giant has put out a tie-in ad in which a woman dressed as a "Kingon," does a "dance of seduction" for a hapless red-shirted imitation of a Star Fleet officer in order to snatch away his drink. Yikes. The justification for the ad, I kid you not, is that the female Kingons want to get the dilithium crystals imbedded in Burger King's promotional glasses. "First they take your dignity, then they take your glass." Dignity? Really?
To top it all off, there are no Klingons, let alone "Kingons," in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.
Posted 05.07.09 by reelz -
Easter Eggs, those fleeting allusions to the world outside a movie that are embedded with in it, have been found scattered throughout J.J. Abrams' Star Trek by people who got an early look at the movie. Sci-Fi Wire has started to pull together a list of the ones that have been discovered so far. Some are pointers to the wider Star Trek universe, while others reference the Abrams universe beyond.
Among the nods to the wider world of Star Trek are brief glimpses of a cooing Tribble, a portentous flagon of Saurian brandy and the registration code for the Enterprise from Star Trek: the Next Generation. From Abrams earlier productions, there are a couple of allusions to Slusho, the imaginary drink launched in Alias which played a prominent role in the viral marketing for Cloverfield. Uhura (Zoe Saldana) orders a Slusho mix at the Shipyard Bar and the blurry logo of the nefarious Tagruato corporation, manufacturers of Slusho in Cloverfield, also makes a brief appearance.
And the hunt goes on.
Posted 04.30.09 by reelz -
Trek Movie has a good rundown of scenes that have been deleted from the final cut of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. One scene, which actually made it onto a trailer but not the big screen version of the movie, shows Amanda (Winona Ryder) and Sarek (Ben Cross) holding baby Spock. Another involves Kirk's alcoholic, abusive uncle. The most interesting and longest cut, though, was a whole subplot showing how Nero managed to escape the Klingon prison planet Rura Penthe. Bits of this one made it onto one of the trailers as well. To see these scenes in full, we'll have to wait for the DVD.
Meanwhile, another collection of clips that did make the final cut has been released, including some extended versions of scenes available earlier and some new footage of the Romulans.
Posted 04.28.09 by reelz -
Is Obama a Vulcan? Newsweek isn't prepared to go quite that far. But it is willing to entertain the notion that there might be some real similarities between Mr. Spock and the new president. There are the prominent ears and the racially mixed background. And like his Vulcan counterpart, Obama seems at times almost inhumanly calm and logical. To top it off, Obama himself admitted during the campaign that he grew up on Star Trek and believes in the final frontier.
All in all, the newsweekly suggests it's an uncanny match and may prove one factor in making the new Star Trek reboot surprisingly cool and timely -- timely enough to make the May 4th cover of Newsweek, in any case. And it doesn't stop there. In addition to pondering how well the Vulcan connection positions Trek in the zeitgeist, this week's issue also reviews the status of the franchise, and the promise of rejuvenation that J.J. Abrams' new vision offers.
Posted 04.27.09 by reelz