Director Roberto Orci and his team are currently working hard to bring Star Trek 3 to the big screen in 2016, and today the Mayor of Seoul has confirmed that the anticipated sequel, to be produced by Star Wars: Episode VII director J.J. Abrams, will shoot in South Korea in the first half of 2015.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon revealed earlier in the week on his personal Facebook page that he had met with Star Trek 3 producer Jeffrey Chernov.

Today I met with Jeffrey Chernov, producer of Star Trek 3, at the Paramount Pictures Studio and agreed to film a portion of the upcoming movie in Seoul."

Roberto Orci followed up by stating:

The Mayor was a lovely man :)"

It was earlier reported that none of Star Trek 3 will take place on earth, with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the midst of their 5 year mission to visit strange new worlds, seek out new life, and boldly go where no man has gone before. It is speculated that Seoul will stand in for whatever alien planet Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and his crew may be visiting next. Or it could be a non-Earth Starfleet location.

It is not known if the Star Trek 3 production is being pulled towards South Korea because of tax incentives or because of the location itself, and how it will serve the story. It may also be a combination of both factors.

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon has been in Los Angeles recently to meet with mayor Eric Garcetti, touring the city's emergency preparedness systems for tips and pointers. He is also said to have met with a number of Hollywood producers and directors in his effort to get them to shoot in his country. Avengers: Age of Ultron is one such movie that took advantage of what the country has to offer.

About that shoot, directed by Joss Whedon, the South Korean mayor stated:

"We provided every convenience for them, blocking streets or districts in total."