Abrams: 'Recasting Khan a challenge'

J.J. Abrams has admitted that recasting legendary Star Trek villain Khan in the franchise would be a challenge.

The Lost creator did not confirm if the character, originally played by Ricardo Montalban, will appear in his Star Trek follow-up, but he did reveal that he is open to developing a new spin on the role, as he did with Kirk and Spock.

"I think one of the by-products of doing this movie was we were able to dispel the obvious and understandable concerns - how can Star Trek possibly exist without those original cast members?" he told MTV.

"Now that we are in a parallel existence with what fans of the original series love so much, we could introduce any number of characters, settings, references and situations that the original series introduced. Dealing with Khan would certainly be a challenge, but we had an equal challenge in finding our crew of the Enterprise."

The 43-year-old director also said that he and writers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof are currently discussing story ideas for the sequel.

Abrams added: "While I don't want to approach the second film as a remake of episodes we've seen in the past... nothing is off limits in terms of what we're discussing."