Though J.J. Abrams won't be around to pilot the next episode of the 'Star Trek' franchise as he'll be too busy with 'Star Wars: Episode 7' (he'll just be producing), Paramount seems to want to keep some consistency and has hired Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman to pen 'Star Trek 3.'

Orci and Kurtzman previously wrote both 'Star Trek' and 'Star Trek Into Darkness,' though they wrote the second with Damon Lindelof, who is currently not attached. Variety reports that the studio first went to other writers, but came back to Orci and Kurtzman.

What this suggests is that Paramount wants to get the next episode off the ground that much faster than the last time, and as we've heard rumors today about Jon M. Chu possibly directing, it looks like they don't want another four year gap between films. If that's the case, then perhaps they'll be shooting next year with a 2015 or 2016 release date. With 2015 already fairly crowded, we'd bet a 2016 launch is more likely.

Orci and Kurtzman are just about the highest profile screenwriters working today, having penned the 'Trek' films along with the first two 'Transformers' movies and the upcoming 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' and 'Edge of Tomorrow,' and have kept busy in television where they worked on 'Alias,' 'Fringe' and the new version of 'Hawaii Five-0.'

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