I keep checking the calendar to make sure I didn’t slide back in time about three weeks to the beginning of April, but nope… this is apparently not a hoax.

After making his feature directing debut on what is reportedly one seriously kickass espionage flick with Mission: Impossible 3, JJ Abrams is bravely throwing himself on another franchise grenade, trying to salvage the seemingly unsalvageable Star Trek series.

Paramount has beamed up Abrams and several cohorts from his TV hits (Lost comrades Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk, and Alias writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman) to defibrillate the deteriorated health of Trek. Their movie will be a prequel, because those always work out so well, focusing on Kirk and Spock’s early days at Starfleet Academy.

Paramount wants the movie in theaters for 2008. I can think of a hundred things I’d rather see Abrams and company tackle, but at the very least with them on the bridge it can’t possibly be more boring than Enterprise. There might even be a few conspiracies and cryptic messages involved.