Ah, gotta love the rumor mill, especially when that mill seems to be turning up some actual nuggets of truth along with the rumors. It appears, according to Deadline, that Roberto Orci is stepping off the bridge of the Enterprise and will no longer be directing the third installment of the rebooted Star Trek film series. Orci had written the two previous films along with Alex Kurtzman (and Damon Lindelof for the sequel), and produced both.

Now, the short Deadline exclusive is prefaced with the word “rumor” and the phrase “I’ve heard,” so we can’t say for sure if this is true, but it does say there’s “fire behind the smoke” that he won’t be directing. This was to be Orci’s first directing gig, which was given to him after J.J. Abrams left to a different (and far-farther away) galaxy, a gig which forced Orci to step down from the proposed Mighty Morphin Power Rangers film, which, let’s be honest, was the correct choice to make. However, despite still staying on as producer of Star Trek 3, Orci, who split with longtime writing partner Kurtzman earlier this year, will now apparently NOT be directing the thing.

This frees up opportunities for other directors, one of which, the article suggests, could be Edgar Wright. Whether or not Wright would hop on another big franchise after vacating Ant-Man this spring due to creative differences is anyone’s guess, but it would afford him the opportunity to A) do a big huge movie with all kinds of name recognition (which Ant-Man really only had because of Marvel’s name) and B) to direct his pal Simon Pegg in a script they didn’t write and would probably contain zero references to Cornettos, even though they should totally work that in.

We’ll have more information on this as it develops, but hopefully, whoever helms the ship gets beamed up soon or we might start saying “Whatever happened to Star Trek 3?”

What do you think of this news? Who would be your first choice to replace Orci? Let us know below!