Here's an unexpected delight: Paramount is launching the first nine minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness into IMAX 3-D theaters on Dec. 14 as an extended trailer that will play before The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Nerdgasm alert!
And the Star Trek sequel is, sure enough, boldly going where none have gone before.
This marks the first time footage will exclusively be playing in IMAX 3-D. Plus, only two times before has exclusive preview footage been presented in IMAX, with The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. (For the record, IMAX theaters have also previously featured teaser reels of Avatar and Tron: Legacy.)
"Our longtime partners J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk and the Bad Robot team have really hit it out of the park—the footage is absolutely incredible," says IMAX Filmed Entertainment chair Greg Foster.
The nine meticulously-shot minutes will precede The Hobbit—which apparently looks so real it's proved disconcerting to some cinephiles—in approximately 500 theaters.
Meanwhile, Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't sail into theaters as a finished enterprise until May 17, so, enjoy those 540 seconds.