If CNN and Fox News can already get away with devoting hours of programming to the 2008 election, then IGN Movies is certainly well within its rights to pass along some gossip from the British "Sunday Mail" regarding "Star Trek XI," also due next year.
According to the latest reports, actor James McAvoy — whom you might recall as Tumnus the Faun in "The Chronicles of Narnia" — is the frontrunner for the role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the forthcoming prequel. He’d be playing a younger version of the character made famous by the late James Doohan (who, ironically, was Canadian, not Scottish).
The face of the next Scotty?
Casting doubt on this report’s accuracy is its inclusion of the insane (we hope) rumors of Matt Damon playing James T. Kirk:
"(The studio) thinks (McAvoy) could form a brilliant double act with Matt (Damon)…James’s star is on the rise after ‘The Last King of Scotland.’ He’s Scottish and has box-office appeal, so he fulfills both criteria."
Maybe we’re in the minority here, but we’d almost rather see William Shatner trying to play Kirk as a young man than Damon (who we really like) in the role; it just doesn’t seem like — how do we say this politely? — the type of project he needs to be taking at this stage in his career.
