J.J. Abrams Talks The Untitled STAR TREK Sequel: Cumberbatch, 3D, And Production Starts This Week

So.. what do we know so far about the untitled STAR TREK Sequel? That it’s going to be shot in 2D and will go through 3D post conversion. That Benedict Cumberbatch will play the villain but the villain won’t be Khan. That Director J.J. Abrams has cast additional actors like Peter Weller and Alice Eve to accompany the returning cast. That there’s some kind of family man and his wife (played by Noel Clarke and Nazneen Contractor respectively) story embedded in the larger story.
Abrams chatted with Collider and explained the decision to cast Cumberbatch..

“We just were looking for someone with the most awesome name in history. That was the casting call. We asked for someone with the most awesome name in history, ever, and Benedict Cumberbatch showed up, so we were like, ‘You’re cast!”

I was just talking to a fellow press member the other day on whether or not Cumberbatch was Benedict’s stage name or real name but we didn’t care because it sounds like the coolest last names since Tarantino.
Abrams said that they didn’t make major changes to the villain role because they couldn’t get the initial actor that they were going for, Benicio Del Toro and now the role went to Cumberbatch.

“We haven’t made any changes because of casting,”

As far as the 3D conversion goes, he said it was the studio’s idea, he wasn’t too crazy about it at first but once he saw some sections of the previous movie converted in 3D, he got cool with it..

“I did not fight for the 3-D. It was something that the studio wanted to do, and I didn’t want to do it. And then, when I saw the first movie converted in sections, I thought that it actually looked really cool. So, I was okay with their doing it, as long as I could shoot the movie the way I wanted to, in anamorphic film, and then let them convert it. So, those who want to see it in 3-D, which looked pretty cool, can do it, and those that want to see it in 2-D can do that too.”

Production on the untitled STAR TREK sequel starts this week and will go on for the next four months

“I think the job of the first movie was just to establish it. I don’t want to give anything away, but I would say that the burden we had in the first movie was just existing at all. With this movie, instead of having to stand on the shoulders of the original series, we built a little bit of a platform for us, with the last movie, to tell this story.”

STAR TREK untitled Sequel will be shot in 3D and then it will go through 3D post conversion. They’re talking about the possibility of shooting some of the sequences in IMAX.
Abrams co-wrote the script with Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci
All of the key cast members from the alternate prequel, (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Anton Yelchin, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban) will reprise their roles.
Peter Weller and Alice Eve will play brand new characters.
Benedict Cumberbatch will play the villain.
Noel Clarke’s role is not fully disclosed, only described as a family man with a wife and young daughter. Nazneen Contractor plays Clarke’s character’s wife.
Oscar winning composer Michael Giacchino (Pixar’s Up, Let Me In, TV’s Lost) will return to score the untitled STAR TREK Sequel which arrives May 17th, 2013