While his next feature film directorial effort remains unknown, J.J. Abrams confirmed his commitment to helming original productions in the future.
"I know that Hollywood is a place where it used to be that people would be inspired by something that they would see or an old film or a show or something and think, 'Oh, here's my response to that. Here's a version of that that,'" Abrams told Collider. "It's become a place where, more often than not, you see something and people get inspired by it and go, 'Let's redo that exact thing.'"
"I feel like, as someone who started writing in television and telling original stories on film and in TV, it is something that I really do miss," he continued. "The few things that I'm working on now, as a writer, are original ideas. I just feel, as a director, I really would love to have my next projects be things that didn't pre-exist me necessarily."
Having served as a screenwriter and producer on various feature film productions since 1990, Abrams graduated to directing motion pictures with the 2006 blockbuster Mission: Impossible III. From there, Abrams has largely focused on helming sequels projects like Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. To date, the only non-sequel films he's directed are Star Trek and Super 8.
In September 2019, Abrams and his production company Bad Robot signed a lucrative deal to produce projects for WarnerMedia through 2024. So far, none of the endeavors announced in this deal entail any original projects for Abrams to direct. Instead, the most high-profile film results of this partnership, thus far, have been Abrams signing on to produce projects like a new Superman movie written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and a series of animated film adaptations of Dr. Seuss books such as The Cat in the Hat.
Source: Collider