Cruise Into The Final Frontier?

Now that the younger Spock has been cast..Rumors for the other characters in the film have started to appear... The folks over at IGN say that some casting buzz concerning the new Star Trek movie has landed exclusively at their feet...

The site has learned from an unnamed source that director JJ Abrams wants an "A-list star" for what would be an important cameo in the new film:

According to our source -- whose scoops have always panned out in the past -- Abrams is wooing his Mission: Impossible III star Tom Cruise to cameo in Star Trek ... as Captain Christopher Pike!



Cruise's name first surfaced last fall as a possibility for a role in Trek, but Cruise spokesman Arnold Robinson advised TrekMovie.com at the time, "That story is not true." There was still bad blood between Cruise and Trek studio Paramount at that time, but in recent months Sumner Redstone, the Viacom honcho who ousted Cruise, has softened his rhetoric, leaving the door open for reconciliation. A Cruise cameo in Trek, however, would be a favor to Abrams and not to Paramount.

Again, we stress that Abrams is said to only be talking to Cruise at this point; that doesn't mean Cruise will actually agree to do it... Cruise's last big-screen cameo was in Austin Powers in Goldmember.

And if you think this Cruise stuff is crazy then you don't even want to know which A-lister we were told Paramount is trying to land to play the villain!

Trekkers know that Pike was James T. Kirk's predecessor as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise and Mr. Spock's first commanding officer. Pike was the captain in the original and unaired TV pilot, "The Cage" where he was portrayed by the late Jeffrey Hunter.

... The unaired pilot was later recycled for the two-part first season episode "The Menagerie," which saw Spock court-martialed for trying to take a disfigured Pike back to Talos IV, the setting of "The Cage." In Trek lore, Spock served with Pike for [over] a decade.

Hunter as Captain Pike opposite Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage."

If Cruise ends up doing the film--it wouldn't be that much of a shock really...He and Abrams seemed to get along well during MI 3...I'm just not sure he's right for the role..Cruise is of course, hard at work, shooting Valkyrie for Bryan Singer--and awaiting the fall release of his next film--Lions for Lambs--directed by Robert Redford. Theoretically, therefore, he could put in a few days work on Trek...Stay Tuned...

C'mon guys at IGN--Why stop at Pike--Give up some of that Trek villain buzz!