Chris Pine to play Captain Kirk in Star Trek

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Melbourne (ANI): Actor Chris Pine has been confirmed as the new Captain Kirk in JJ Abrams" Star Trek. The news comes from none other than filmmaker Joe Carnahan who announced the signing on his blog. Carnahan revealed that Pine had turned down his movie White Jazz because he had accepted the lead role in Star Trek.

“The young man playing Junior Stemmons has opted to 'boldly go where no man has gone before' and thus, had to bow out of White Jazz . I've been talking to him this past week and knew how tough the decision had to be for him.I don't envy ever being in that spot but I gave him my full support, even if it meant he didn't do Jazz. I get it," Moviehole quoted him, as writing on his blog.

“You don't get opportunities like that often and I told him as long as he could control as much of that process as possible and not get sucked into doing lesser sequels as a result of taking this gig, then good luck and God bless. We're sure to do something down the road. I've already slotted him in for Killing Pablo," he added.

Already on board to star in the movie are Eric Bana, Anton Yelchin, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and Leonard Nimoy. Abrams now needs to fill in the place of Federation captain.Bana has signed on to star as villain Nero. Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy will both be playing Mr. Spock, while Saldana will be playing Uhura, the communications officer on the USS Enterprise.Yelchin will be playing Pavel Chekov, a Russian Starfleet officer.

Abrams is also producing "Star Trek" through his Paramount-based Bad Robot shingle. The movie will revolve around the crew's early days at Starfleet Academy, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci wrote the screenplay and will exec produce alongside Bryan Burk and Damon Lindelof. The film is set for a Christmas Day 2008 release.