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Édgar Ramírez Could Take Over for Benicio del Toro in Star Trek 2; Peter Weller's Role Revealed?

When Benicio del Toro (Traffic) decided to skip out on the highly-anticipated sequel Star Trek 2, director J.J. Abrams was left without a villain in his cast. Variety reports that Édgar Ramírez (Carlos, Vantage Point) is the frontrunner to replace del Toro with Jordi Mollà (Colombiana, Knight and Day), though no offers have been made. Ramirez reportedly will audition for Abrams via Skype later this week.

What role the two actors are auditioning for is still in question. Del Toro was rumored to be playing Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically-augmented superhuman originally played by Ricardo Montalbán in a 1967 episode of the original Star Trek series episode, and again in the 1982 movie sequel Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Likely because del Toro and Montalbán are both Hispanic, the role of Khan seemed a lock for del Toro, despite Abrams shooting down the rumor as "not true". With two other Hispanic actors up for whatever the villain role will be, the Khan rumors are not going away anytime soon. To add fuel to the fire, we'll point out that in 2009, Star Trek screenwriter Roberto Orci said that Khan's chances of showing up as the villain in the sequel were "50/50."

Both Peter Weller (Robocop, Dexter) and Alice Eve (She's Out of My League) have been recently cast in unspecified roles, though Weller's role was somewhat revealed by Weller's agent, Todd Eisner. "Of course J.J. Abrams is very tight-lipped about his projects," Eisner told EW, "but I do know that it’s a substantial role and that Peter is playing a C.E.O."

There are still no clues about the role that Eve will play, but both actors, and the actor that eventually replaces del Toro, will join Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Karl Urban (Bones), John Cho (Sulu), Anton Yelchin (Chekov) and Simon Pegg (Scotty), in the sequel to his highly-successful 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Production is set to last from January until June, with Abrams directing a script from screenwriters Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof.