It's not often that you can get two different sites reporting two seemingly opposing news stories and have them both come out smelling like a rose, but that's exactly what we have now with this whole Benicio Del Toro/Star Trek situation. The actor had been in talks to play a villain in JJ Abrams' upcoming Star Trek sequel, to the delight of many who felt Eric Bana sucked ass in the previous film. To make the fanboys even more riled up, reports started to emerge that Del Toro would actually be playing Khan, one of the great Trek villains made iconic by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Latino Review reported with some certitude that this would be the case, quickly followed up by HitFix who spoke to Abrams and flat out said "Not true".
Who was wrong? Turns out nobody, as Vulture reports that negotiations with Del Toro broke down over money last week. But they also have a "highly placed source" who states that Khan definitely is the bad guy. Well, there go my Gul Dukat hopes.
So this means neither side was wrong. Latino Review had the actor and the role pegged, but HitFix also had it nailed with Del Toro having left. And Abrams didn't technically tell a big fat whopper of a lie, either.
I hate the idea of seeing Khan brought back at all, because I feel like the purpose of rebooting the Star Trek universe was to have the freedom to tell new stories with new characters. Khan is an old retread, if you ask me.
Here's hoping things change before filming kicks off next month.
