/Film is reporting that director J.J. Abrams wants Benicio Del Toro to play the villain in the upcoming sequel to his Star Trek reboot.
This being an Abrams project, very little is known about it at this point other than that the screenplay is being written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Damon Lindelof and that everyone who made it through the first film is scheduled to return. In fact, the film is so secretive that he wouldn’t even tell Del Toro what the role was when they met. While Del Toro is not particularly known for playing villains, he has had the chance a few times in his career to play not-so-nice characters in films like License to Kill and Sin City.
Of course, now the speculation begins as to who he would be playing. At this point in the original franchise, Khan was brought back from The Original Series to be a villain to William Shatner‘s Captain Kirk, but would Abrams want to go this familiar route with his rebooted series of films? Perhaps he’ll be playing another original character like Eric Bana in the first film.
The Star Trek sequel was originally supposed to be released next summer, but had to be pushed back due to Abrams having to deal with Super 8. Though no release date has been set, hopefully it won’t be too long before the crew of the Enterprise is back in action. With shooting due to begin in January, there’s a good chance it’ll be out in the summer of 2013.
Who would you like to see Del Toro play? Khan? Another Trek character? Another original character?