YOU'VE BEEN CUMBERBATCHED!

While I eagerly await his marriage to Imogen Poots, with whom I assume he will eventually give birth to a powdered wig (they’re not together… yet), Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast in JJ Abrams Star Trek sequel. There are conflicting reports on whether he’ll play a villain (according to Variety) or not (Deadline says it could be either), but he joins the already-cast Noel Clark, Alice Eve, and Peter Weller. Cumberbatch is best known for his role in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, playing Sherlock Holmes in a BBC series, and leading the silly name brigade to victory at the battle of snoggy bottoms.

It will be interesting to see whether Cumberbatch plays another high-class man of wealth, a role he claims to have been typecast in as a result of his rich upbringing. Jeez, you would’ve never guessed by the name.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has a ghost from his past casting a shadow over his career: he was too privileged growing up. The son of actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, Cumberbatch attended the Harrow school, which now charges $47703 in admission per year [*waves frilly hanky, faints* -Ed.]. As a result of his young posh education, he says casting directors are unwilling to see him in a role beyond that of a wealthy menace.

“I was brought up in a world of privilege. It can ostracize you from normal codes of conduct in society,” he told the Radio Times. “Being a posh actor in England you cannot escape the class-typing from whatever side you look at it. I realized from quite early on that, although I wasn’t trying to make a class specialty of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.” [HuffPo]

I hear he was once so upset about being served a shrimp fork for an oyster platter that he slapped the craft services supervisor with a white glove. I hear he also refers to picking up chicks as “hunting the fox” and has a secret sexual peccadillo that involves a euphemistic craving for “blood pudding.” To paraphrase commenter Galway Girl, Benedict Cumberbatch is so British, my pack of smokes started buttf*cking each other.

Much to the dismay of mostly just him, William Shatner will apparently play the same role in Star Trek 2 that he played in K.D. Lang’s J.J. Abrams’ first installment – nobody. At a question and answer panel at the Calgary Entertainment Expo on Saturday, the original Captain James T. Kirk told his legion of adoring nerds fans that he will not play a role in Abrams’ second Trek film.

As he signed autographs for more than 600 people in the span of a few hours, Shatner, seen above accepting a cowboy hat from Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and R2D2, reassured his Trekkies and Sci-Fi fans that he wasn’t pulling their legs, either.

Shatner. who was a little peeved about not getting a cameo in the first ‘Star Trek,’ announced his non-involvement at the Calgary Comic Expo during a Q+A session: “I have become an acquaintance of J.J. as of late but I’m afraid no…I will not be in Star Trek 2.”

Former Trek star Leonard Nimoy (who played a huge role in the first film) will also not be returning for the franchise’s next film. Last year, Nimoy stated that he was ready to retire from acting and that his cameo on the show ‘Fringe’ would be his final role. (Via Popeater)

Shatner could be full of it and keeping a nice secret from us for the sake of nostalgic surprise, but I really hope not. It’s nice to see that he’s taking this in stride and not acting dickish about it. I mean, Ricardo Montalbán won’t be in it either, but you don’t hear him complaining.

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It doesn’t matter if JJ Abrams’ Star Trek is any good when it comes out May 8th – it already has huge buzz! Because we talk about it in the internet, you see.  And now the writing team of Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman (the guys who wrote Transformers and The Island) and Damon Lindelof have signed up for a sequel.

“There’s obviously a lot of hubris involved in signing on to write a sequel of a movie that hasn’t even come out yet,” said Lindelof, co-creator with Abrams of ABC’s “Lost” who produced the upcoming “Trek” but did not contribute to Orci and Kurtzman’s screenplay. “But we’re so excited about the first one that we wanted to proceed.”
As for potential storylines, Kurtzman stressed that the writing team will wait to take a cue from fan reaction about which direction to go [Ed. Note: please don't.  Fans are idiots.].
“Obviously we discussed ideas, but we are waiting to see how audiences respond next month,” he said. “With a franchise rebirth, the first movie has to be about origin. But with a second, you have the opportunity to explore incredibly exciting things. We’ll be ambitious about what we’ll do.” [Variety]

Hmm, first film after franchise rebirth… I know!  We could call it Star Trek: The Afterbirth.  But I’m sure this will be great. Look how well Indiana Jones’ franchise rebirth went.