Well, that’s interesting. Just a few weeks after word came down that Roberto Orci would no longer be helming Star Trek 3, Deadline broke the news of his replacement: Justin Lin, best known for his work on the Fast and Furious franchise.
Orci will be staying on as producer for Star Trek 3, and Lin comes fresh from his stint on four Fast and Furious films, which grossed a collective $1.9 billion worldwide and turned the franchise into a box office juggernaut. Lin had previously been lined up for a sequel to The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner set to star, but that film was pushed back after Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon agreed to return to the series for another outing. With an opening in Lin’s schedule, Paramount swooped in to make a deal.
While several other directors had been in the mix, Deadline reports that Lin was the only one who actually received an offer from the studio. Universal was also pursuing Lin for a multi-part finale to the Fast and Furious series, but the Star Trek gig might rule out that possibility.
With a body of work comprised mostly of pure action films, Lin certainly doesn’t seem like the most obvious choice. But he’s also responsible for the exceptional high school crime film Better Luck Tomorrow from 2002, and he’s currently helming a few episodes of True Detective for the second season of the hit HBO series. As the Fast and Furious films continued to get bigger and crazier, Lin proved that he could wrangle an ever-growing cast and crank out some truly spectacular action scenes, so he’s certainly not an implausible option. That being said, the world of Star Trek is very different than the high-octane material Lin has spent the last eight years creating.
No word yet on whether or not he’ll be approaching Star Trek 3 with the existing draft, or if he’ll be starting from scratch with a new screenwriter. Star Trek 3 is planned for a July 8, 2016 release.
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