Lawsuit against fan-made Star Trek movie to be dropped, J.J. Abrams says

A lawsuit brought by Paramount Pictures against a fan-made and funded Star Trek film is "going away," director J.J. Abrams told a crowd at a Star Trek fan event on Friday night.

Abrams, according to io9, told fans that Justin Lin, the director of Star Trek Beyond, was angered by the lawsuit Paramount Pictures brought back in December against Axanar Productions, which raised more than $1 million to film and produce Axanar, pitched as a prequel to the original Star Trek television series.

Lin, said Abrams, "was sort of outraged by this as a longtime fan," and went to Paramount "and pushed them to stop this lawsuit." Abrams says that "in the next few weeks," there'll be an announcement that the suit "is going away."

That was news to Axanar Productions. io9 got a statement from the filmmakers thanking Abrams and Lin for their support but noting that the lawsuit still is pending. "Our goal from the beginning of this legal matter has been to address the concerns of the plaintiffs in a way that still allows us to tell the story of Axanar and meets the expectations of the over 10,000 fans who financially supported our project."

The filmmakers also noted that they didn't expect to hear this announcement at the Friday fan event and needed to consult with their attorneys on what to do next.

Paramount Pictures alleged comprehensive copyright infringement by the Axanar project, in a court filing made public in March. The infringements Paramount listed ranged from the Klingon language to the distinctive pointy ears of Vulcans. Over 48 pages, it listed every instance in which an image or a concept used by Axanar also showed up in a Star Trek TV show or film owned by Paramount or CBS.

Axanar Productions, for its part, claimed that its production was legal because it was a non-commercial product even though it would generate merchandise other than the movie. That, however, might require some kind of audited accounting of how the production's income and expenses flow.