Recently Rupert Wyatt was rumored to be the frontrunner to take over from J.J. Abrams on Star Trek 3, and although Abrams doesn't confirm that's the case, in the following video interview with Hitfix he does have some nice things to say about him.
Abrams says that there's no director in place yet, though I think we can pretty much rule out him taking the helm himself once more ("I plan to be involved in the story and producing the film and I feel very blessed to be involved at all.") So what about Wyatt?
"I know Rupert and he's incredibly talented," he says,
"and we'd be lucky to have someone as talented as Rupert. But there are things we're focusing on right now before the director, which is just sort of the fundamentals of where the story is gonna go." Abrams says it's too early to discuss details, but that at the end of
Into darkness we found the crew about to start their 5 year mission, so that's likely where we'd pick up.
"There have been a lot of really exciting ideas about what comes next," he teases.