TREK 3 Production Heading Overseas to Film in Dubai

Things just got going this week in Vancouver, but we’ve also learned today that the next Star Trek film will be traveling to Dubai soon for additional filming on the sequel, following in the footsteps of Star Trek Into Darkness which included portions filmed in Iceland.

In a Slashfilm interview released today, Skydance Productions heads David Ellison and Dana Goldberg spoke about the then-upcoming production on the Trek sequel, covering the yet-to-be-confirmed Star Trek Beyond title, as well as filming destinations and director Justin Lin’s vision:

SLASHFILM: I want to segue into a certain Star Trek sequel that I believe starts filming soon. Is it called Star Trek Beyond?

GOLDBERG: To be determined.

SLASHFILM: What can you tell people about when it’s filming and where?

ELLISON: We start shooting in ten days and we’re shooting in Vancouver and Dubai.

SLASHFILM: Dubai is an interesting place for an alien planet.

ELLISON and GOLDBERG: Could be [laughs].

…

GOLDBERG: [Justin Lin came] in to meet with us and to meet with everybody at Paramount and pitched a version of the film that we just thought ‘wow, that has huge potential.’ We’re not allowed to talk about the specifics of the film to say the least, but what we can tell you is there are some sequences that we have seen in pre-vis that are just incredible.

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The pair also discussed the nature of the CBS / Paramount “divorce” that split Star Trek ownership rights between the two companies, setting up the feature films against the world of Trek television.

SLASHFILM: What is the status of Star Trek on the small screen? Is Skydance involved in that?

ELLISON: It’s something that we would love to be involved in. As I’m sure everybody knows, the rights situation given the CBS and Paramount divorce on the Star Trek rights is very, very complicated. The exact status of it is absolutely something being worked on. We would love to be involved, but all to be determined at this time.

GOLDBERG: You’re preaching to the converted. We would love it, both as fans and as people who would want to be involved in the making of them. We would love it. Everything you just said is right. It goes with what we were talking about before with television is you can just take more time to tell very specific stories and it would be fantastic. It’s not something we control, sadly.

. . .

SLASHFILM: Is that the reason why there hasn’t been a TV show in all of these years? Because it’s such a popular property around the world, you would think that they’d get their head out of their ass and do something with it.

GOLDBERG: You said that, we did not [laughs].

ELLISON: It’s wildly, wildly complicated.

Just speaking towards going to something we do control, not trying to get myself into trouble by answering this bluntly, because you said it appropriately, is the Terminator rights were scattered all over the world prior to us getting involved. And it’s when a franchise has been around for thirty or fifty years, different people make different deals at different points in time.

It really took for Terminator the previous owner actually going bankrupt and going through obviously bankruptcy court, and then even after that it took a year to clean up the straggling pieces that that process did not clean up. We’re very thankful that the rights now all revolve under our house so they are now all at Skydance so we can control all assets of the property.

That’s not always the case with franchises, and when they’re fifty years old, there’s a lot of complicated deals that have been made that sometimes prevent things that might seem obvious that need to happen from happening.

With Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto already onboard for Star Trek 4, should it come to pass, there will be many questions regarding the state of Trek television — and if fans will need to wait another four years for hopes of a return to the small screen.