J.J. Abrams Regrets STAR TREK Khan Secrecy
I always thought trying to keep the villain Khan a secret in Star Trek Into Darkness was kind of ridiculous. I applaud J.J. Abrams' effort in keeping it hidden, but his audience is smarter than he thinks, and they saw right through it. In a recent interview with MTV, the director admits that he regrets keeping Benedict Cumberbatch's role a secret saying,
"The truth is I think it probably would have been smarter just to say upfront 'This is who it is.' It was only trying to preserve the fun of it, and it might have given more time to acclimate and accept that's what the thing was."
Abrams goes on to reveal that the idea to keep Khan a secret came from the studio. He explains,
"The truth is because it was so important to the studio that we not angle this thing for existing fans. If we said it was Khan, it would feel like you've really got to know what 'Star Trek' is about to see this movie. That would have been limiting. I can understand their argument to try to keep that quiet, but I do wonder if it would have seemed a little bit less like an attempt at deception if we had just come out with it."
Whatever any of them were trying to do, one thing is for sure... the movie got a lot of publicity online because the villain of the film was a hot subject that everyone wanted to talk about.
Abrams is now moving forward with Star Wars: Episode VII, but he will stay on as a producer for the third Star Trek, which might end up being directed by Joe Cornish. When asked about that, Abrams replied with,
"I don't know if Joe Cornish is the guy. My guess is that's up in the air. I adore him and love him and can't wait to see what he does next. Hopefully it will be 'Star Trek.' Whatever it is, he's brilliant. 'Attack the Block' was one of my favorite movies of the year when it came out."
It will be interesting to see how any kind of secrecy on the films is handled from here on out.