As J.J. Abrams winds down his Super 8 duties with the film’s Blu-ray release this week, the sequel to his 2009 smash hit Star Trek is moving full-steam ahead. While it’s taken a couple years to get going and Abrams only just recently officially signed on as director, Captain Kirk and crew are absolutely 100% coming back with a firm release date of May 17th, 2013 set. However, the release date is just the tip of the iceberg as we now have confirmation that we’ll be following the crew in 3D this time around. Hit the jump for more.We recently learned that production on the follow-up is set to begin on January 15th, and now Deadline reports that Paramount has slated the film for a May 17th, 2013 release date. Sony just moved Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi pic Singularity off that date, so Paramount jumped at the chance to claim the pre-Memorial Day weekend as their own. The sequel will go up against Sony’s Pixels (based on the short film), and will open one week after Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim and two weeks after Iron Man 3. Universal’s Fast and Furious 6 has the displeasure of opening the week after Star Trek 2, in what’s looking like an epically action-filled start to the summer 2013 movie season.There’s no explicit clarification as to whether Abrams will be filming in 3D or post-converting, but Deadline’s report says Abrams will be “making the movie in 3D”. It’s a bit of a no-brainer that they’re going the 3D route, but I do hope they plan on filming in native 3D as the short post-production time doesn’t bode well for a pristine 3D-conversion.As if the release date and 3D news wasn’t enough, Coming Soon has confirmed with composer Michael Giacchino that he’ll once again be returning to score the pic. His music was one of the best aspects of the first film (which is no surprise, given the guy’s immense talent), so I’m extremely happy that he’ll be back to wow our ears once again. All the cast members from Abrams’ original Trek are expected to return, and the director recently confirmed to MTV News that Benicio Del Toro is in negotiations to star as the villain (though what villain they’ve settled upon is still under wraps). Screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof have been done with the script for a while, but are on their third draft of revisions as of last week.Here's a sampling of Giacchino's work on the first film: