ReelzChannel | J.J. Abrams

Karl "Bones" Urban on Star Trek 2

BRENTJS SPRECHER — 20 Nov 2009 19:40:09 CDT

After a notable role as Eomer in the second and third chapters in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Karl Urban went on to star in the ill-fated Pathfinder, Marcus Nispel's Vikings-versus-Native Americans action film.

Urban followed up his little-seen Pathfinders starring role with the supporting role of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in J.J. Abrams' revamped Star Trek, a role that promised to put him back in the spotlight. However, Abrams' film focused primarily on the relationship between James T. Kirk (played by Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), rather than on the the Kirk-Spock-Bones trinity that served as the basis for the original series. In a recent interview with IGN, Urban said that he hopes that his role gets beefed up for Star Trek 2, if only to pay homage to the original.

The structure [of the new film] wasn't really the traditional triumvirate that you've seen on the television show. It was really more a movie about establishing everybody. I certainly hope that [screenwriters] Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and J.J. continue to strengthen and evolve those characters into those directions.
I would love to play scenes being essentially Kirk's moral compass or point of conscience. The way McCoy was written, he really sort of verbalized the war going on in Kirk's conscience, and I certainly would love to see more arguments of passion versus logic with Spock because they're always fun.

Urban also offered his opinion on the direction the second Star Trek film should take.

I think the challenge is to come up with the most important mission, the mission that literally tears these people apart. The mission that is the definitive Trek mission. We have to come up with something akin to a Dark Knight or The Empire Strikes Back. Something like that.

Urban recently shot And Soon the Darkness, which is in post-production, and is currently filming Priest.

Faran Tahir Talks Iron Man 3 and Star Trek

RYAN GOWLAND — 18 Nov 2009 14:25:57 CDT

Earlier in the year, Iron Man actor Faran Tahir mentioned the possibility of a return as Iron Man's nemesis Mandarin in Iron Man 3 ... or at least as a "conduit" to Mandarin. Tahir told Moviefone that no decision has been made yet, but the possibility is there.

Jon Favreau and [the producers] are not stupid. They're also listening in on all of this and wanting to get the pulse of where the audience is. But at some point, they want to introduce Mandarin into the storyline and my character, like Mandarin, was the leader of the Ten Rings. We're leaving it open because, partly, it makes good business sense for us to leave a little bit of uncertainty for people to speculate on.

Tahir says Favreau has known "where he wants to take" Iron Man 3 "for a long time," and that there will be "linkage somewhere in [Iron Man 2" that will set up a third movie.

In the meantime, Tahir has taken roles in television shows as well as the supporting role of Captain Robau in Star Trek. Tahir's screen time is brief, which may be why he feels that director J.J. Abrams may be out to get him.

J.J. and I keep joking about that. I've done four things for him and every single thing I do for him, I die. It's like, "What the heck is your problem? Do you just not want me on Earth?" His last e-mail to me was, "I promise you the next time, you are not going to beepin' die."
My thinking was that because it sets the mood for the entire saga, it was worth doing and was going to have an impact. So it's 10 minutes, but it's a good 10 minutes.

J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof Tease Star Trek Sequel

BRENTJS SPRECHER — 18 Nov 2009 10:51:11 CDT

Considering the incredible success of director J.J. Abrams' Star Trek revamp, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Paramount Pictures would move forward with plans for a sequel. However, in the months since Star Trek debuted, there has been little heard about the proposed sequel beyond William Shatner 's plea to appear in the next movie and numerous internet rumors about Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically enhanced superhuman played by Ricardo Montalbán in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, making a return.

At the recent Star Trek DVD/Blu-Ray release party, Abrams and writer-producer Damon Lindelof spoke with Sci-Fi Wire about the planned sequel, which Lindelof said Paramount would be "hard pressed" to release by 2011, joking, "If that's the case, we'd better get to writing right now." Abrams confirmed Lindelof's statements about the script, or lack thereof, and mentioned that his involvement in the sequel is not set in stone.

In theory, I would be available [to direct Star Trek 2], and it would be fun to do. Since there's no script, it's hard to talk about directing a movie that the story doesn't even exist.

However, even without a script, Lindelof teased that Star Trek 2 might not be a linear sequel after all.

One of the things we like to do as storytellers is drop you in the middle of something. And the question that you're asking yourself is: Where am I in relation to the last time I left these guys? Could this be something that predated even, perhaps, some of the adventures that they had in the first movie? Does it happen five years later? Is it happening two seconds later? Who knows? So we're not going to tell you.

And, as for the rumors of Khan appearing in Star Trek 2, even though Abrams said earlier this month that "nothing is off limits," he told Sci-Fi Wire:

We're not even at that stage yet, but the fun of where we are on the sequel is we could use some of what was done before in a new way. But we haven't even figured out what we would use yet, so it's very early on.