The Week In Geek: Benecio Our Trek II Bad Guy? Leonardo da Vinci: Action Hero & 2012 Oscar Drama

Is Benecio del Toro Our Trek II Villain? 

It looks like the first new casting for the sequel to JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot has occurred, and it looks to be the part of the lead villain. It seems Benecio del Toro is Abrams first (and so far only) choice for the movie’s bad guy, and an offer has been made. What we don’t know yet is who the villain is. Everyone seems to assume the villain is going to be Khan Noonian Singh, simply because the last movie designated as Star Trek II had Ricardo Montalban’s Khan as the villain. Also, del Toro is latino like Montalban was (Khan however, was supposed to be East Indian or something. Go figure.) Hopefully, Benecio is going to play a Klingon bad guy instead. I mean, they barely have to add those forehead ridges, he kind of already looks the part doesn’t he?

Oscar Drama, 2012

It seems the biggest story out of Hollywood this week was the resignation of Brett Ratner, movie director hack du jour and all around insufferable douchebag, from directing duties for the 2012 Academy Awards. And when he walked, so did his choice for host Eddie Murphy, who could have really used the opportunity for another comeback. Here’s how everything apparently went down this week, to the best of my knowledge: First, at a recent speaking engagement, when talking about his latest movie Tower Heist, when asked about whether or not he had his actors rehearse, Ratner dropped this lovely nugget “rehearsal is for fags.”  No one really knows what he meant by that, but at the end of the day all that mattered was that he dropped the f-bomb for seemingly no reason. At first, the Academy gave him a slap on the wrist and essentially said “you better not do it again.” But as many people pointed out, if Ratner had said the N word, or any other kind of derogatory slur, his ass would have been out instantly. All the Academy did was perpetuate the notion that homophobia is that last permissible form of discrimination. 

Well, within a day Brett Ratner resigned as director of the Oscars, and within another day his choice of host Eddie Murphy walked with him. The Academy scrambled to find a replacement, and found one in scary muppet looking producer Brian Grazer. Grazer offered Murphy a chance to stay on as host, but for some reason he declined, I guess in a show of loyalty to Ratner. In a last minute save for an Oscar host, in came the safest choice possible…Billy Crystal.

As boring as Crystal is a choice for host, I’m glad that Ratner is out. And NOT just because of X-Men The Last Stand, which as a geek I’ll hold against him forever. Ratner is the epitome of douchey bro-dude type, the kind that goes on Howard Stern and talks about all the starlets he’s “banged” (In fact he did that too this past week, name dropping Olivia Munn and Lindsay Lohan).  He’s like every bad frat boy trait all in one person. And the Oscars, well….they’re the gay Super Bowl.  Ratner would have just turned the Oscars into the regular Super Bowl. Well you know what hetero America? You already have a Super Bowl. Let my people keep ours.

Leonardo da Vinci, Super Hero?

Speaking of de-gaying things, it looks like Universal, last week so open about the shitty movies they make, is looking to produce yet another one. This time, they’ve had the genius idea of making an action adventure movie (and potential franchise) out of the adventures of young Leonardo Da Vinci. According to Variety, the studio is now developing a project simply called Leonardo, which will follow a young da Vinci as the main character and action hero. Based on a spec script by Jonny Kurzman, the project will see the famous artist/inventor go on an adventure to “stop Renaissance Europe from returning to the Dark Ages.”  Okay, maybe it isn’t that  horrible an idea, it just sounds like it could go wrong a million different ways and become a massive cheese fest. One thing is almost for certain….any aspects of Leonardo’s homosexuality is gonna be nixed and replaced with a nubile young female love interest. Just watch. Hence what I said about de-gaying earlier. Hey, why not get Brett Ratner to direct this one? He needs a gig now.

Brian K. Vaughn Brings Stephen King’s Under The Dome To Showtime

It seems the past few weeks in this here column I keep writing about various Stephen King projects in various stages of development, whether it is The Stand or The Dark Tower or something. Well, prepare to add one more to that list; it seems Brian K. Vaughn, the author of Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina and one of the staff writers on seasons 2-5 of Lost, has been tapped to write an adaptation of King’s novel Under The Dome. Dome is about the citizens of a Maine vacation town forced to do battle with supernatural forces when their town becomes enclosed by a mysterious dome. This is being set up by Dreamworks a series for Showtime, although whether or not it is a mini series or a regular series remains unknown. This is now just hitting the writing phase, so don’t expect to see this baby until 2013 at the earliest.

Kung Fu Returns, To Be Directed By Chet From Weird Science

It wouldn’t be a week in geek news without reports of something getting rebooted or sequelized; this time it is classic TV series Kung Fu getting the reboot treatment as a feature film. The 1972-75 series was about a Shaolin Monk named Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) who fled to America after killing the Chinese Emperor’s nephew. While wandering the Old West, he searches for his brother and attempts to stop evil whenever he comes across it. Or, as Jules in Pulp Fiction simply put it “he walks the Earth, meet people and gets in adventures.” Now comes the left field part-the director isn’t Quentin Tarantino as one might expect, since he not only made that  Kung-Fu reference in Pulp Fiction, but actually cast David Carradine as Bill in Kill Bill. Whenever this rumor has been floated around before, he always seemed like the obvious choice. But nope, it’s not QT, it’s Bill Paxton. Not sure what to think of this choice, but I did like his horror movie from a few years back Frailty, so I supposed this could be interesting. I just hope they don’t cast another white guy as a half Asian, or worse, Keanu Reeves.