Collider managed to grab JJ Abrams on the red carpet at the Saturn Awards, and extracted a few titbits about the future of Star Trek.
The director and producer called the discussions he'd been involved in so far "cursory", but admitted that he'd been salivating about some of the ideas that had been thrown around: "It's about that kind of feeling, like 'oh my god, I can't wait to do that!' I won't be walking away from Trek in any way in the next film. I feel too lucky to be a part of this thing to say goodbye to it."
That ought to assuage some of the fan concern that Abrams might have beamed himself out of the franchise now that his work on the first is complete, although it still doesn't discount the possibility that he might delegate directing duties and serve only as producer. But that was an arrangement that worked well enough for Cloverfield.
Meanwhile, at a Transformers junket, the same source managed to pump writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci for information (they're busy at the moment!). The "active discussion" is apparently to not go the obvious villain-of-the-week route, and to try something unusual, "where the unknown and nature itself is somehow the adversary or the villain model."
The pair also hinted that they're thinking ahead to further instalments, with the intention of starting threads and plots that will be ongoing, much like the loose trilogy of The Wrath of Khan, The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home. They hope to have a script drafted by the end of the year, with Paramount keen to get properly underway as soon as possible.
Clearly the way forward for the sequel is to have Spock lose his brain and be operated by remote control by McCoy. Why can nobody see this?!*
*That's a joke. Don't start.