We heard that Universal had intentions to reboot The Mummy franchise last month, and now the studio has issued a press release announcing that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (writers of Star Trek and Transformers 2) will be developing and producing the “modern reimagining”.

The press release also announces they’ll be involved with a reboot of Van Helsing (remember the Hugh Jackman movie from 2004?) and Tom Cruise is attached to star in and produce the film.

Here’s the full statement:

Universal Pictures today announced the studio has signed a two-year first-look production deal with one of the leading writing/producing teams in the entertainment industry, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and their K/O Paper Products banner. The duo will kick off their new relationship with Universal by reimagining titles from the studio’s library including Van Helsing and The Mummy. The announcement was made by Universal Pictures Chairman, Adam Fogelson and Co-Chairman, Donna Langley.

Kurtzman and Orci have collaborated with some of the industry’s top creative minds including J.J. Abrams, with whom they wrote the third installment of Mission: Impossible, which grossed nearly $400 million at the worldwide box office. In 2007, they wrote Transformers and went on to write Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009. Together, those films grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide. More recently, the pair wrote and executive produced 2009’s Star Trek, which grossed more than $385 million worldwide. Accompanying their impressive film resume, Kurtzman and Orci have found tremendous success in television, having created the series Fringe, writing/producing Alias and in 2010, producing the reboot of Hawaii Five-O. They also currently executive produce the highest rated show on Hasbro’s The Hub, Transformers Prime.

“Alex and Roberto are extraordinarily talented writers and producers who know the value of a great story in building successful tentpole films,” Fogelson and Langley said in a joint statement. “They have been a major part of some of Hollywood’s biggest movies and television shows in recent history, and we’re eager to have them build on that success at Universal.”

“We’re thrilled to call Universal Pictures our home,” said Kurtzman and Orci. “From the moment we sat down with Adam, Donna, Peter, Jeff and the entire Uni team, there was an instant flow of inspired ideas. They really understand the importance of building a strong creative team and giving our shared projects their full support. We’re proud to start making movies that will live as part of Universal’s enduring legacy.”

Kurtzman and Orci’s K/O Paper Products will develop and produce a modern reimagining of Universal library titles including The Mummy, alongside producer Sean Daniel and writer Jon Spaihts. The pair will also develop and produce Universal’s reimagined Van Helsing, with Tom Cruise attached to star in and produce the film.

Kurtzman and Orci’s upcoming projects include writing Sony’s next installment of The Amazing Spider-Man; producing Now You See Me, for Lionsgate Summit, set for release in March 2013; and producing Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, also for Lionsgate Summit. Kurtzman and Orci wrote and produced People Like Us, which marks Kurtzman’s directorial debut and is scheduled to be released in June 2012, and wrote and produced the second installment of Star Trek, set for release in 2013. The pair most recently rewrote All You Need Is Kill for Warner Bros., with Tom Cruise attached to star, Doug Liman to direct and Erwin Stoff to produce.

Kurtzman, Orci and the rest of their K/O Paper Products team, including President Bobby Cohen, will be housed on the Universal lot. Former assistants Ben Kim and Kim Cavyan will come aboard as creative executives. Kurtzman and Orci are represented by CAA and attorneys Michael Gendler and Kevin Kelly of Gendler & Kelly, APC.

Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have been hit and miss with their movies. For every success like Star Trek there are less successful ones such as Cowboys and Aliens and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. On top of developing The Mummy and Van Helsing the duo are also writing the script for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and producing Ender’s Game, so they’re going to be pretty busy.

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Movie geeks everywhere are intimately familiar with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The duo has written J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, the first two Transformers movies, Mission: Impossible 3, and Cowboys & Aliens, and have produced a ton of stuff from the television series “Alias” all the way up to next year’s film adaptation of Ender’s Game. Now, the writing/producing team has locked down their next gig: they’ll be writing the sequel to this summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man.

ComingSoon has the news, and I’m decidedly mixed about this. For every great project these guys have worked on, there’s a pretty terrible one to balance it out. James Vanderbilt originally wrote the script to this sequel, but it appears Sony is looking for something a bit different. It was recently reported that “Freaks and Geeks” and Bridesmaids director Paul Feig came in to do a little writing on the first The Amazing Spider-Man, so perhaps Sony is searching for someone with a finger a bit more on the pulse of current high school students to take this series to the next level. But are Kurtzman and Orci the right guys for the job?

I can totally see them as producers – after all, they specialize in big-budget blockbusters – but writing? It’s really tough to guess how this will turn out at this point, so I’ll leave it to you guys: do you think Kurtzman and Orci can write a compelling Spider-Man story? The Amazing Spider-Man swings into theaters on July 3rd, 2012, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 hits theaters on May 2nd, 2014.

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Last month J.J. Abrams said he was still waiting for Damon Lindelof, Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman to submit their script to Paramount before deciding whether he’ll direct the Star Trek sequel or not. If they want to hit their June 2012 release date they’ll need to get a suitable draft in pretty soon, and that seems to be the aim as a tweet from Orci suggests their deadline is sometime next month.

From @boborci via Trek Movie:

aiming to turn in first full draft of Star Trek in six weeks or so.

If the script is filmable we should be hearing news on whether Abrams will direct sometime in April. A summer shoot seems likely, but according to Trek Movie that might “slip a bit” in order to accommodate Chris Pine’s schedule. Paramount pushed Star Trek back from December 2008 to May 2009, so there is a possibility they’ll push the sequel back if needed.

As well as Pine, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin and John Cho are all expected to return.

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With a June 2012 release date currently set for Star Trek 2 Paramount may want to start filming in early Summer or late Spring. However, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are still working on the script and J.J. Abrams has yet to decide whether he’s directing.

He’s the latest on the sequel from Abrams himself, from IGN:

Q: How is Star Trek coming?

Abrams: There’s a script that’s being written by Damon Lindelof and Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman and I can’t wait to read it!

Q: So at this point, you’re not quite sure what’s in it?

Abrams: Oh, no. I’ve been developing the story with them, so I know the story. But they’re writing it and obviously I’m on the edge of my seat to crack the script open.

Q: Do you know when you might make the decision on whether you would direct it or not?

Abrams: Well, as soon as I get the script, that will be the thing. It’s just difficult to direct a film when you haven’t read the script, that’s all. But they’re hard at work, so…

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were hired to write Star Trek 2 way back in March 2009, but since then they have written and produced Cowboys and Aliens with Jon Favreau and have a bunch of other movies keeping them busy. Paramount will want to keep that June 2012 release date, so pre-production will likely begin soon and we can assume Abrams will once again be directing.

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UPDATE: Hero Complex has now updated their story, claiming their confirmation that Abrams is back as a director was a mistake. As of now, no director has been officially announced. Original story follows.

Hero Complex spoke with Star Trek 2 writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and revealed an important piece of news I haven’t seen officially confirmed until now: J.J. Abrams will be returning to the director’s chair for the sequel to 2009′s Star Trek. Hit the jump for some more choice quotes about the highly-anticipated sequel.

In the interview, the writing team – one of the most in-demand in the industry right now for blockbusters  - says they “have broken the story, which is very exciting.” But what direction will they take this new film now that the crew has been formed and everyone is together?

We’re looking at a lot of the old episodes for inspiration, still. Whereas the last movie was all about breaking free from “Star Trek” and its canon, now that we can do whatever we want, we still want it to feel like good ol’ “Star Trek” even though it’s a new story.

When asked if Star Trek 2 will have an Empire Strikes Back feel to it, where it’s essentially “Act 2″ in a larger story, the writers had this to say:

Yeah, that is an interesting question. I don’t know that we’ve ever thought of it in terms of a trilogy. We thought of the first one as, “How do we tell how this happened the first time and how do we free it so that it can go on forever without stepping on what came before.” So, if you were thinking of this movie as a second act, yeah, you would think of it as an “Empire Strikes Back” sort of story, but I’m not sure we’re thinking of it as a second act. I can’t speak for everybody on that, though.

Check out the full interview at Hero Complex and let us know in the comments section if you have high hopes for Star Trek 2. With that great ensemble cast and with Abrams at the helm, this is one of my most anticipated movies of the next few years.

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During a recent Q&A session with Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman the duo spoke about the sequel, which they are in the process of writing. They said that now the first film has set up the characters the crew members will have to deal with a much more challenging villain next time around, and they also spoke of the pressure due to the success of the first film.

From TrekMovie:

Orci: We would never do a remake….it will be some time in the five year mission. But that is a question. Should we pick them up immediately the next day or should it be later, we are still discussing that.

Kurtzman: I think our idea on this is that the first of any series is about them coming together or the formation. I couldn’t really tell you what Jeff Bridges was doing in Iron Man, but it doesn’t matter at all because it is all about Iron Man becoming Iron Man. Whereas I think sequels are very much about the villain. Because while [in the first one] the villain serves to bring the crew together, the second one I think has to be a true challenging of what that family is about. That is why Wrath of Khan was so amazing. Khan tested each one of them and ultimately asked for the ultimately sacrifice, and that is why that movie held up so well.

Orci: Frankly I fee more pressure because we were so confident when we came up with the idea of how to bridge canon, and yet free ourselves from canon. Now we have no excuses for anything, now we are free. Now we don’t have the benefit of low expectations.

Kurtzman: It is true, I feel much more pressure.

I’m not that knowledgeable when it comes to Star Trek, so are there any villain(s) you’d like to appears in Star Trek 2?

Paramount recently set a release date for June 29, 2012, and filming is expected to start at the beginning of 2011.

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Buried in an article by The Daily Beast (via /Film) about how the success of Avatar is changing movies and 3D, there is a short paragraph that mentions Cowboys and Aliens, which Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau signed up to direct last year. Apparently the film will start shooting in July, and Favreau will be filming it in 3D.

If July is indeed the planned filming date then that will only give Favreau 2 months rest after finishing Iron Man 2 to begin work on the film, which explores what would happen if the traditional Old West enemies – cowboys and Native Americans – found the prairie attacked by aliens in mid-1800s Arizona. Robert Downey Jr. has signed up to play a character called Zeke Jackson, who I assume is the lead cowboy, and the script was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, writers of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Trek.

The teaming up of Favreau, Downey, Kurtzman, Orci could produce some very exciting results, especially is cowboys, Native Americans and aliens are involved in all out war. However the Transformers 2 script was weak in many areas that didn’t involve explosions, so hopefully Favreau can steer it away from mindless action and add some depth. Even if the plot is ridiculous.

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With nearly $400 million in worldwide box office takings and overwhelmingly positive reviews Paramount are no doubt pleased with the performance of J.J Abrams’ Star Trek this year. Their pride will probably be extended even further knowing that the film is also the most pirated movie of 2009. Or maybe it won’t? Either way they are happy with it enough to green light a sequel, which is currently in the process of being written.

Zoe Saldana, who played Uhura in Star Trek, recently spoke to MTV while on the rounds promoting Avatar and she gave a small update on the sequel:

“I spoke to J.J. and Bryan Burk, his producing partner at Bad Robot, and they are still in the middle of building the script with Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci, and we’ll probably be going into pre-production around this time next year.”

So if all goes swimmingly production on Star Trek 2 could begin early 2011. This could mean Paramount are aiming for a Winter 2011 or Summer 2012 release, which is light years away.

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Last week Michael Bay informed the world that he had started working on Transformers 3, and that it would be hitting our screens in 2011. This means they may start hashing out a script over the upcoming months, but who will be writing it? Back in March writers Roberto Orci And Alex Kurtzman hinted that they might not be returning as it was “time for fresh blood!” and they don’t want to risk becoming “stale and comfortable”. Now they have confirmed that their Transformers days are over.

From /Film:

Producer Don Murphy maintains a pretty lively website and forum that was crashed for a bit this morning when Roberto Orci confirmed in a forum post that he and Alex Kurtzman would not return at all for Transformers 3, leaving script duties entirely in the hands of Ehren Kruger. (Well, not entirely, as Michael Bay will have his input.)

2009 was Orci and Kurtzman’s year having written the scripts for both Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, however I’m still not sure if they are any good or not. Star Trek was one of the best reviewed films of the year with 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Transformers is one of the worst with a mere 19% and complaints of a bad plot and characters with no depth.

Regardless of talent, their films make money (which is good enough for some) and they will be busy working on the Star Trek sequel, as well as Cowboys and Aliens with Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau.

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A little burst of Star Trek sequel news for everyone, especially since there seems to be a small groundswell of journalistic activity questioning if Michael Bay is really going to step away from Transformers 3 to direct a “smaller movie.” The argument is that Transformers: ROTF stands to make Bay a butt-load of money and that a third film in inevitable. The problem is that pre-production should start in a couple of weeks to make a timely sequel, and screenwriters Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman are busy working on the upcoming Robert Downey Jr action flick, Cowboys and Aliens as well as actively being in discussions with JJ Abrams about Star Trek 2.

That’s right, stepping away from the Michael Bay question, Orci and Kurtzman have expressed interest in running away from the Transformers franchise, but have promised Paramount a draft of Star Trek 2 by this holiday season.

In a video from Collider at the Saturn Awards, Steve Weintraub asks JJ Abrams about his involvement with the Trek sequel…

[Note: You can watch the video embed, directly to the right of the title in the "media box" area, or you can CLICK HERE to check it out at the source.]

If that wasn’t enough to quench your Star Trek thirst for awhile, or if you’re still blaming Orci and Kurtzman for the failings of T: ROTF (instead of rightfully blaming the WGA Strike), check out THIS POST at TNMC that discusses the scenes cut out of the first Abrams Star Trek film, including a whole Klingon subplot…that actually makes a lot of sense.

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