Star Trek Into Darkness Made a "Mistake" by Keeping Khan a Secret, Producer Admits

With JJ Abrams fully ensconced in the Star Wars universe, it seems as though the director and his collaborators are now happy to discuss why his last film in a big sci-fi franchise--Star Trek Into Darkness--failed to meet many fan's expectations. Following Abrams' own comments last month, co-writer and producer Damon Lindelof has also pitched in about the film.

During an interview with Variety about his TV show The Leftovers, Lindelof addresses the controversial decision to deny that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing the iconic Star Trek villain Khan. "When we did Star Trek Into Darkness, we decided that we weren't going to tell people that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan," he said. "And that was a mistake, because the audience was like, 'We know he's playing Khan.' That was why it was a mistake.

"But JJ is telling us nothing about the new Star Wars movie and we love it. I've not come across a single person who's like, 'I wish I knew a little bit more.' We are like, 'Thank God he's protecting us from all the things that will be revealed in the movie theater.'"

Last month, Abrams admitted that the film had begun production before he felt the script was ready. He told Wired that "I remember starting to shoot Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness and feeling like I hadn't really solved some fundamental story problems."

Abrams also went on to admit that Into Darkness was too dependent on homaging previous stories within the Star Trek universe. "We got in trouble on the second Star Trek film with some of the fans. There were too many nods to The Wrath of Khan. I'll cop to that," he told Stephen Colbert while being interviewed during the Montclair Film Festival.

The next film in the long-running franchise will be Star Trek Beyond. It opens on July 22, 2016, and stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Idris Elba, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, and John Cho. It was also revealed last month that a new Star Trek TV show is in development, to be screened in 2017.