Date: 18th August 2014

Simon Pegg hails new Star Trek director.


New Star Trek director Roberto Orci is the "perfect sense" replacement for J.J. Abrams, actor Simon Pegg has said.

Screenwriter Orci will take over from Abrams, who is currently shooting Star Wars Episode VII.

He emailed me before the news broke saying: "Hey man, I might be doing this, shall we nerd out?," said Pegg who plays Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott.

"He's a good friend, he's very much part of the Star Trek family," he added.

Star Trek 3 will be Mexico City-born Orci's directorial debut.

He has screenwriting and producer credits on projects such as the Transformers films and Mission: Impossible III, and co-wrote both of Abrams' Star Trek films.

Orci is writing the story for the third instalment, alongside JD Payne and Patrick McKay.

"I'm really happy he's doing it as it's kept within the family kind of thing, it's not somebody coming in from outside," said Pegg, who is set to reprise his role as the USS Enterprise's sole Scottish crewmember, originally played by Canadian actor James Doohan.

"Bob's been there since the first Star Trek - by that I mean the 2009 one - so it seemed to make perfect sense that he come in as a director on this one because he gets it."

"He was always the most Trekkie of all of those guys anyway, he's always understood the story the best so it's great that he's going to be involved in the writing and directing."

Pegg added Abrams will continue to be involved, not least because his production company, Bad Robot, is making the film. "I don't think JJ would be able to let it completely go because that's not in his nature," he added.

Abrams is currently shooting the seventh instalment of Star Wars at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.

Source: Press Release