Without wishing to downplay last week’s STAR TREK 2 casting news, but this recent announcement is surely far more exciting to fans (sorry Alice Eve)…

It’s now been confirmed by his peoples that genre legend Peter Weller (ROBOCOP, BUCKAROO BANZAI) has signed on to play an unspecified character in Abrams’ upcoming sequel.

Weller has actually appeared previously in the STAR TREK canon, portraying John Frederick Paxton, leader of the terrorist organization Terra Prime in two episodes of ENTERPRISE. Could this be a callback perhaps? Or is J.J. completely unaware? We buy Klingons, but a universe where the human genome created two beings as ‘distinctive’ as Weller?… Nah.

Weller seems to have enjoyed a second renaissance of late, with some superb guest starring roles in the likes of DEXTER and FRINGE.

Benicio Del Toro meanwhile is still thought to be joining the production, but according to Abrams in a chat with hitfix.com over the weekend, he categorically denied the actor would be playing Khan as previously thought. We’re going to go out on a limb and predict Alice Eve won’t be either.

STAR TREK 2 beams into our cinemas on the 17th of May 2013.

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