‘Star Trek 2’ Is Now Officially Known As ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

The upcoming Star Trek sequel is now officially known as Star Trek Into Darkness, according to MTV News. Director J.J. Abrams’ highly-anticipated sequel to his 2009 box office hit isn’t scheduled to arrive in theaters until May 17, 2013, but at least fans know what they’re supposed to call the flick in the meantime.

Screenwriter Damon Lindelof, who also wrote Prometheus and the troubled World War Z, explained at this year’s Comic Con in San Diego that the team was having a difficult time choosing the right title for the film. Since using “2” or a colon was simply out of the question, creating something intriguing was a bit more troublesome than they had anticipated.

“There’s no word that comes after the colon after ‘Star Trek’ that’s cool,” Lindelof explained. “Not that ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ or ‘First Contact’ aren’t good titles, it’s just that everything that people are turned off about when it comes to ‘Trek’ is represented by the colon.”

TrekMovie, the website responsible for confirming the rumor, reports that Paramount Pictures tested numerous titles for the upcoming sequel over the summer. At one point during the process, removing the words “Star Trek” from the title was considered. The studio, of course, has remained silent on the subject, so nothing official has come down the pipeline as of this writing.

According to Coming Soon, Paramount has secured the domain names www.startrekintodarkness.com and www.startrekintodarknessmovie.com, though nothing has been added to these sites just yet. However, the acquisition of these domains suggests the studio feels strongly about the title.

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot was a lucrative venture for Paramount. Box Office Mojo states that the movie earned a whopping $257 million during its domestic theatrical jaunt, which is well above the estimated $150 million production budget. Not surprisingly, the studio was eager to get another entry in the series into gear as soon as humanly possible.

Is Star Trek Into Darkness a good title for the sequel?