Abrams suffered plenty of criticism from Star Trek fans when he opted not to cast Shatner, the original Captain James T Kirk of the USS Enterprise, in this year's big screen update of the iconic sci-fi film and TV series.
Abrams did cast the original Spock, Leonard Nimoy.
Star Trek was one of the most successful films of 2009, earning almost $US400 million ($430 million) at the worldwide box office and with a sequel set for release in theatres in 2011, Abrams confirmed Shatner may be offered a role.
"I would love to work with him," Abrams said. "We speak. We actually have a lunch date planned."
Abrams opted to make Star Trek a prequel, winding the clock back to the early years of the Star Trek crew with young actors Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock) and Simon Pegg (Montgomery Scott) filling the lead roles.
While Abrams and screenwriters Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman managed to find a way to bring Nimoy back, they opted against offering Shatner a role.
The dilemma they faced is examined in The Shatner Conundrum, one of the extra features on the Star Trek DVD.
"It was a foregone conclusion we wanted him in the movie," Abrams explained.
"The problem was his character died on screen in one of his Trek films and because we decided, very early on, that we wanted to adhere to Trek canon as best we could ... the required machinations to get Shatner into the movie would have been very difficult to do given the story we wanted to tell and also to give him the kind of part that he would be happy with.
"It was this thing where it would have felt like a gimmick in order to get Shatner in the movie, which would have honestly, to me, been distracting."
The success of Abrams' Star Trek and the welcome Pine, Quinto, Pegg and other new actors received from Trekkies will make it easier to introduce Shatner into the sequel, Abrams said.
"In terms of moving forward, I am open to anything," Abrams added.
"I feel like the first movie did some of the heavy lifting that needed to be done in order to free us to continue going forward.
"Maybe there's less of a burden and there's going to be more opportunity to work with him (Shatner)."http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26239995-23109,00.html
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