JJ Abrams and Tom Cruise are reuniting to film Mission Impossible 4. Abrams directed the last Mission Impossible and has been asked by Cruise to produce the next one. But, we’re not sure if Abrams will sign on as a director again, or just stay a producer. In a TV Guide article the Abrams said, “Tom and I have come up with a really cool idea.”

The writers of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek revealed the plot idea of the never-happened William Shatner cameo.

“We did write a Shatner scene,” writer Roberto Orci explains. “And we were ultimately split internally. We didn’t want it to be a gimmick; we wanted to really bring him back in the right way.”

Co-writer, Alex Kurtzman, divulges what was supposed to happen in the film: 

“Elder Spock tells young Spock, ‘I couldn’t tell you the truth about what’s happening, because if I had, I would have robbed you of the benefit of realizing the greatness that you and Kirk will achieve together — and the amazing friendship that you’ll have. You had to discover that for yourself, and I couldn’t get in the way of that.’

And in our original version, younger Spock says, ‘I’m still not sold.’ Elder Spock said, ‘Well, don’t take my word for it,’ and he handed him a little disc — a DVD, really — that projected a hologram, and then he walked away. And the hologram was of Kirk. It would’ve been Shatner.

It was a ‘happy birthday’ message [with Kirk saying], ‘This is the last time I’m going to be able to wish you happy birthday, so I want to tell you how much you’ve meant to me and how amazing it was that we had all these adventures together.’”

William Shatner was not asked to be in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek. And there was rumor that there might be some hurt feelings and bad blood. So, Chris Pine, the actor who landed the role of Capt. Kirk, said in a recent interview that he wrote a letter to Shatner.

Pine said in the interview, “I wrote William Shatner a letter and explained who I was because I heard there was bad blood between him and the studio. I said, ‘I’m just an actor who happened to get a role that happened to be James T. Kirk, and I’m not trying to usurp your status or anything’. He replied, ‘Thank you very much for the letter. I wish you the best of luck.’ I have it on my fridge.” 

JJ Abrams recently revealed that he had initially gone out to Matt Damon to play the part of Captain Kirk.  After Damon turned it down, Abrams said it was actually a better choice to go with unknowns for the movie.

“I actually approached Matt and we had some discussions, but everything happens for a reason. On the one hand, it would have been great to work with Matt - but at the end of the day, it was such a better move to cast the movie with unknowns…. It is fun to discover the stars of tomorrow, but even more so, just like with the first Star Wars, you didn’t know who those people were when you saw the movie. You believed that guy was Luke Skywalker. You didn’t recognize him from six other movies. You bought into who this guy was. It is a slippery slope when you cast any actor that is somewhat known. We weren’t beholden to any fame meter.”

JJ Abrams guest edited the newest edition of WIRED magazine. In it, he writes an article on mysteries and spoilers but also packs the magazines with puzzles, games and other JJ Abram-esque wonderfulness.

On stands this week.