Conan O’Brien‘s nightly talk show on TBS is really becoming quite the hot spot for surprise major movie announcements. Hot on the heels of Will Ferrell announcing in March that an Anchorman sequel had been given the green light for a release sometime in 2013 comes the world premiere of finished footage from one of next summer’s hotly-anticipated motion picture events.

Last night J.J. Abrams stopped by Conan to discuss, among other things, his upcoming film Star Trek Into Darkness, the long-awaited sequel to his blockbuster 2009 reboot of the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise, Star Trek. During the interview Abrams surprised O’Brien and sidekick Andy Richter with the news that he had wanted to bring with him the first footage from the movie to premiere on the show. Unfortunately Paramount Pictures had a slight problem with that, but after Abrams’ insistence the studio relented, but only on the condition that Abrams limit the footage shown to just three frames of film.

You can watch the video here below. The actual scene begins – and ends – at the 1:50 mark.

It’s common practice for actors and directors promoting their new movie or television show on the talk show circuit to bring specially-selected scenes from said project to show the studio and home audiences, but Abrams has once again confounded our expectations. The scene focuses on Spock (Zachary Quinto) in a volcano for some strange, unexplained reason. The scene, all one-eighth of a second of it, does look fantastic though; it could be part of a forthcoming teaser trailer, which would make sense seeing as how the holiday movie season is upon us and that’s usually an ideal time to crank up the hype machine for next summer’s blockbuster sci-fi and action epics. In November 2008, the first full trailer for Abrams’ first Star Trek premiered in front of the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace and in an instant more than a year of questionable buzz surrounding the much-touted reboot evaporated.

Oddly enough the next Bond adventure Skyfall opens in theaters next month. Could we be looking at a teaser trailer premiere soon? Only time will tell.

Star Trek Into Darkness opens on May 17, 2013.

Video

[Source Conan via The Mary Sue]