Kurtzman, Orci Talk Recreating Trek Magic

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, screenwriters for the upcoming Star Trek feature film, had a terrific weekend: their film Transformers brought in $67,600,000 for a cumulative first-week gross of $152,500,000. Now they are looking ahead to Star Trek, hoping to recreate the same magic.

"This has been vetted by so many fanboys and insiders. We feel pretty strongly about it," Kurtzman told Geek Monthly. "I don’t think we would be being so coy and secretive, if we didn’t feel strongly about it." The pair did not directly address the question of whether the film was a relaunch but Kurtzman added, "I think maybe on this one more than even on Transformers, we were imagining possibly a bigger universe...it’s going to continue. That’s part of the whole theme of Star Trek. There is always going to be a future."

Kurtzman conceded that working on Star Trek was a fan's dream, "But now we are establishment, so do we qualify as fanboys anymore? We are on the dark side now." He would not confirm any plot points, not even the presence of the Enterprise, except to say, "Kirk is in it. And Star Trek is in the title." The pair had an actor in mind to play Kirk "but we can’t say who."

Orci also talked to IGN, focusing on the Transformers film but answering questions about how he works with director J.J. Abrams. "When you're lucky enough to know that you're targeting a director, you do tailor it a little bit because that's a luxury in a way - to know that you might get the person you want," he explained. "In general the first couple of drafts we very much make it about what we want to see, and then as it becomes real who might jump in, we go a little bit toward them...it's nice to know who you're writing for, both actor-wise and director-wise."

As for the internet and pressure from fans, added Orci, "It's different if I'm writing an original thing that no one has any right to say a god damn thing." A project like Transformers or Star Trek "is something that we all own as fans, and that has to be taken seriously, I think, for the project but also from just a P.R. kind of a way."

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