From the mouth of Matt Damon himself: he won’t be playing Captain Kirk in JJ Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek. Talking with IGN, the actor seemed actually warm to the idea of playing Kirk, saying that William Shatner had even given him his blessing. But it’s all a rumor, Damon says, and they’re actually casting much younger for Kirk; in fact he says that he spoke with JJ and thinks they’re going with a 20 year old. Maybe we’ll know more for sure at Comic Con in a couple of days.
For me the puncturing of this rumor is a bummer; like Shatner, I think Damon would make a great Kirk. Also, the idea of casting as young as Damon thinks they’re casting makes me nervous at best. All of the talk of Star Trek 90210 could be coming true. This whole project has me torn: I love rebooting the original crew, I’m ambivalent about Abrams (who still hasn’t proven himself to me in any way), and I hate a cast that’s too young. Oh Damon, what could have been. I just wanted to see Will Hunting nailing a green chick… is that so wrong?