Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy in a scene from 'Star Trek' (2009).
Last week, Star Trek actor Karl Urban (Leonard McCoy) told an SFX reporter that Benedict Cumberbatch would be playing Gary Mitchell, a character who first appeared in the original series’ second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (you can read more about this in our Oct. 2010 story here). At a press conference for his new movie Dredd, Urban said, “He’s awesome, he’s a great addition, and I think his Gary Mitchell is going to be exemplary.”
Whether or not Urban was seeding disinformation intentionally, or had mixed up the name with Gary Seven, another character from the original series who appeared in the second season episode “Assignment Earth”, is the subject of much debate on the Interwebs, and is unknown at this point, with Urban himself trying to bush off his earlier remark at Comic-Con today, saying, “I’m really not at liberty to discuss anything about Star Trek. All I can say is that I did that interview after a 22-hour flight from New Zealand. I literally hopped off the plane into the interview.”
Certainly, Cumberbatch (who we know is playing Star Trek 2‘s villain), looks reminiscent of Robert Lansing, the actor who played Gary Seven in “Assignment Earth”. Beyond this, it’s all speculation.
What doesn’t appear to be speculative, however, is another comment Urban recently made to ComingSoon.net at Comic-Con, suggesting that footage from Star Trek 2 will become public during the weekend of fan festivities, even though Paramount Pictures decided to bow out of SDCC this year. “I can promise you that before the end of Comic-Con, some exclusive Star Trek footage, it’s going to come out,” Urban let slip. “You’re going to find it. It’s going to come out.”
To coin a phrase: “Fascinating.”
We will watch and see.
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