According to Variety, the movie’s premiere will remain ‘under construction’ until May 8, 2009.

The film was simply part of a major reshuffling in Paramount‘s calendar. In most cases, a changed date usually signals bad news; that’s not the case with Trek. In fact, the studio believes the movie will benefit from this shift.

The revamped Enterprise won’t be coming in for a landing on Christmas.

Paramount has pushed the release of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek from Dec. 25 to May 8, 2009, part of a larger scheduling shift now that the writers’ strike is over and producers can look realistically at their films’ ETAs.

Abrams’ much-anticipated addition to the franchise, which will take fans back to Kirk and Spock’s formative years, is now due out on the Thursday before Mother’s Day.

To date, no other film jockeying for the same audience is slated to be released at the same time. The only possible eyeball-stealers at the moment are 20th Century Fox’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which is due in theaters May 1, 2009, and Sony’s Da Vinci Code prequel Angels and Demons.

So, apparently, while moviegoers couldn’t turn around in summer 2007 without smacking into a threequel, the summer of 2009 is shaping up to be the season of the prequel.

And there are plenty of Trekkers out there who aren’t thrilled that their Christmas Day plans have been turned asunder, although plenty actually like that Paramount seems confident enough in the product to make it a warm-weather movie.

“I’m psyched that this gives them more time to do their stuff to make as good a film as possible, but also, I can’t help thinking ‘Damn it’ because I’m already dying to see this movie as it is,” wrote Kamen Rider Blade on a trekweb.com message board.

The Star Trek teaser trailer, which premiered last month before Cloverfield and features Leonard Nimoy’s familiar voice intoning over images of the under-construction Enterprise, stoked fan interest.

“It means Paramount has great faith in the film,” added timmer33. “They’re seeing the dailies and know it has the potential to be huge. May is the time for BIG releases.”

The prequel’s cast is certainly big, rich with both newcomers and familiar Vulcan faces.

Among those venturing to the final frontier are Winona Ryder, playing Mr. Spock’s Vulcan mother (a twist on the original); Zachary Quinto, playing young Spock (Nimoy will also appear as the older version); Chris Pine as Kirk; Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy; Simon Pegg as Scotty; John Cho as Sulu; Zoe Saldana as Uhura; Anton Yelchin as Chekov; and Eric Bana, playing the villainous Nero.

Paramount shuffled a few other high-profile projects, as well:

* David Fincher’s take on the F. Scott Fitzgerald story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt as a man who’s aging in the wrong direction, is moving from Nov. 26 to Dec. 19.
* The Renée Zellweger thriller Case 39 has been bumped from Aug. 22 to Apr. 10, 2009.
* Eddie Murphy’s latest foray into family-friendly territory, Nowhereland (which had to shut down production one day when filming was interrupted by WGA picketers), originally scheduled for Sept. 26, will have to wait until June 12, 2009.