Star Trek 2008

Eric Bana has officially signed on to play the evil villian ‘Nero’ in the J.J. Abrams directed reinvention of the “Star Trek” film franchise for Paramount.

The focus of the new Trek movies are to retell the adventures of James T Kirk and pals as a young man, in his academy days learning the ropes if you like. Director Abrams is also involved with the rather intriguing 1-18-2008 or 18-1-2008 as they say in my country.

Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, said, “We could not be more thrilled to be back in business with J.J. Abrams. The revival of the Star Trek franchise is an important part of Paramount’s turnaround.”

Chris Pine (Smokin’ Aces) is also negotiating a role as Captain Kirk, joining the already cast Zachary Quinto as a young Spock, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, Zoe Saldana as Lieutenant Uhura and best of all Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy of course played Spock in the 1960’s TV series and also in the ensuing motion pictures. We can only guess a few flashback scenes are probably in the pipeline when the film finally reaches viewers in the cinema.

Internet gossip currently take the view that the movie will feature a group of time-traveling Romulans serving as the main villains in the film, thus expect Eric Bana to perhaps be their leader or some kind of evil figurehead.
Casting is under way in New York and over here in London with several other key roles, in particular a much younger Sulu and Enterprise engineer Scotty. These castings have to be decided before production commences in November.

Shooting will continue through to March, with the film to open Christmas Day next year in 2008.

No indicators whether the movie will simply be called ‘Star Trek’ or whether the name will change, it may. The ‘in production’ title however is ‘Star Trek XI.’