Star Trek Directors Step in to Allow Fan-Film to be Made

The widely published lawsuit between Paramount Pictures and a fan-made Star Trek movie has been resolved. Following the intervention of Trek directors Justin Lin and JJ Abrams, it seems that the studio is no longer looking to scrap the film titled Axanar and claim damages from its producers.

As reported by iO9, Abrams, who directed the first two films in the recent Star Trek reboot series, addressed the issue at a recent fan event in LA. "A few months back there was a fan film, Axanar, that was getting made and there was this lawsuit that happened between the studio and these fans," he said. "I'll tell the story because he probably wouldn't, [but Lin] was sort of outraged by this as a longtime fan. We started talking about it and realized this was not an appropriate way to deal with the fans.

"The fans should be celebrating this thing. Fans of Star Trek are part of this world. So he went to the studio and pushed them to stop this lawsuit and now, within the next few weeks, it will be announced this is going away, and that fans would be able to continue working on their project.”

Paramount and affiliate CBS have long had a reputation for supporting fan films made for non-commercial purposes, and had previously met with Axanar's executive producer Alec Peters to give him their approval. However, the film's massively successful crowd-sourcing campaign raised more than a million dollars, turning the project into something that the studios felt violated their intellectual property. In December they filed a lawsuit to close the production down and claim damages.

Peters himself claimed that the budget would now allow him to make a film that had "professionals working in front and behind the camera, with a fully-professional crew--many of whom have worked on Star Trek itself--who [would] ensure Axanar will be the quality of Star Trek that all fans want to see."

Axanar will be set in the early days of the Federation, before the events of the original '60s series. It is to focus on the conflict with the Klingon Empire, culminating in a battle on the planet of Axanar.

Disclosure: CBS is GameSpot's parent company.