Sony wants Roland Emmerich to spend a little more time on his upcoming much-hyped film "Singularity," which means it may not be ready for its projected May 2013 release.

Although the film is set to go before the cameras beginning in March, one studio source told The Wrap they didn't believe it would affect the selected release date. But the tight turnaround for the film could take it out of that release date, and may make room for "Star Trek 2" to premiere exactly four years after its initial film.

Sony, which is producing the film through its Columbia Pictures division, did not say what problems the Emmerich's story had. However, the studio is bringing in a singularity expert to help advise some of the science and conceptual aspects of the story.

Ray Kurzweil is a respected scientist, once recognized directly by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who has worked in the fields of speech recognition and artificial intelligence. His 2005 book, "The Singularity is Near," was turned into a hybrid fiction/non-fiction film called "The Singularity is Near: A True Story About the Future." That film was released to DVD last year on a $5 million budget. He has also made a number of television appearances over the years, mostly for his books, including "The Daily Show" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

At the same time, however, Kurzweil's futurist views have come under some criticism, including a number of predictions he made in the late 1990s that showcased what he considered would be viable technological advancements by 2009. This included self-driving cars, widespread use of speech recognition and extremely powerful computers.

Emmerich is working on the screenplay with Harald Kloser, a composer and writer who has worked on a number of other projects with Emmerich, including "Anonymous," "10,000 B.C." and "The Day After Tomorrow."

Emmerich is a celebrated writer and director, making his first big American break with "Stargate" in 1994, which went on to include a franchise of three television series loosely based on the film. He was later involved with some hits and some flops, including "Independence Day" in 1996, "Godzilla" in 1998, "The Patriot" in 2000, and "The Day After Tomorrow" in 2004.

His most recent big-budget film, "2012," earned $166 million in the domestic box office, falling short of its $200 million budget. Scientists had also deemed "2012" the film with the least amount of scientific viability of any other production.

"Singularity" centers on a scientist who transfers the consciousness of his injured son into a collection of nanobots that are able to assume his son's physical form.

Viacom executives said Thursday that Paramount had pushed back the release of "Star Trek 2" into 2013, suggesting it could return to a potential May release. If "Singularity" is pushed out of the way, that could possibly cement "Star Trek's" insertion. If not, "Star Trek 2" could be pushed later into the summer, potentially as a July 4 tentpole.