Star Trek 3 in 2016?

In an interview with Digital Spy, Star Trek Into Darkness producer Bryan Burk answered a few questions about the movie. The most intriguing is that it seems that Paramount and Bad Robot would like to have something for the 50th anniversary of the franchise which is 2016 but that its too early to have any specifics.

Do you keep an eye on the online reaction once you reveal a trailer or something big from the movie?
"Yes is the answer. It's funny because when we did Lost we would just gravitate towards things that people didn't like or things that were confusing. Even when talking to JJ, he will say, 'What didn't they like?' It's not looking for affirmation as much as it is seeing if people are not liking something. We feel excited about Star Trek Into Darkness, we definitely feel this is better than the last one."

You created a new timeline with Star Trek in 2009, will there be a lot of referencing back to the original series and movies for those fans?
"Yes, one of the things is that the movie will always be for Star Trek fans. In the process of all us five producers working together, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof, to a slightly lesser extent, are crazy-hardcore Trekkies. They understand the world so we had long conversations where they put things in and would be laughing hysterically. I had no clue why they were! There are tonnes of references and nods."

Given that the Gene Roddenberry series debuted in 1966 and we've just had a huge Bond 50-year anniversary celebration - has Paramount been talking to you about making a 2016 release date for the next Star Trek film?
"We're definitely talking about the next one, but we haven't talked about a release date. We don't want to wait four years, the same amount of time between the last one and this one, but it's going to be a big year to celebrate, hopefully."

As long as Paramount is willing to accept JJ Abrams as not directing the third Trek film, a 2016 would be a pretty easy mark to hit. That would give from mid-summer to 2014 to write the script (which is about the pace it took to hammer out the previous two movie scripts) and then 2015 to film and post-production for a summer 2016 release. However if Paramount is determined to wait on Abrams then the earliest would be 2017 and that assumes that Star Wars Episode VII goes off without a hitch for a 2015 release (which few believe will happen). Of course if Star Wars is delayed a year as expected then its possible Star Wars and Star Trek could come out in summer 2016. I doubt Disney is concerned about that but Paramount would be as any film versus Star Wars is going to get smoked in the box office.