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Now Vulture is claiming that the deal to hire Del Toro has fallen through and he won't be starring in the movie. On the up side, the site also backs up Latino Review's scoop that Khan is indeed the villain in the new Trek movie.

A major leak may have just happened: according to Latino Review, Benicio Del Toro is playing none other than rogue superman Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek 2.

The character was first played by Ricardo Montalban in the classic Trek episode "Space Seed". Montalban later reprised the part in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, considered by many fans to be not just the best Star Trek film ever, but one of the best sci-fi action movies too.

Latino Review stands by their source and points to their impressive record of breaking major casting news before.

Later that same evening, HitFix followed up on the scoop and contacted director J.J. Abrams. When the site asked Abrams if Del Toro was playing Khan, the filmmaker said, "Not true." [Full story]

Alice Eve has been cast in the Star Trek sequel. Her character is said to be new to the Trek universe. The actress reportedly beat out Hayley Atwell (Captain America: The First Avenger) and Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four) for the part.

Eve has starred in She's Out of My League and the final season of Entourage.

Also mentioned is that there are two other major male roles to be filled, both villains and one character (rumored to be the character that Benicio Del Toro is up for) is younger than the other male part. [Full story]

Paramount has finally announced a specific release date for the next Star Trek movie. The second Trek adventure to be directed by J.J. Abrams will come out May 17, 2013.

Production on the Star Trek sequel begins on January 15, 2012. That's the latest news courtesy of TrekMovie and their insider sources who go on to say that ILM has already begun working on special effects sequences. Before you begin wondering what space battles the FX company could be making for Kirk and his Starfleet crew, most of these shots are for space sequences that don't need any additional elements.

Scouting is also taking place. Hawaii is a rumored possible filming location for Trek 2, which could stand in for a jungle planet. There's also talk that the production will shoot inside a museum in Los Angeles that's reportedly well-known within the Star Trek lore. Filming will also take place within Paramount soundstages.

While the writing on the wall made it look like Paramount wouldn't be able to make a June 29, 2012 release date for its Star Trek sequel, Deadline claims that internally the studio has decided to give the 6/29/12 date to the G.I. Joe sequel called Retaliation. If so, that would bump ST2 to a holiday 2012 or more likely a summer 2013 release.

Deadline also claims that J.J. Abrams is presently working on the script and will come back to direct the sequel.

Some of the feedback that fans had about 2009's Star Trek will find their way into the follow-up. For instance, there's that little story detail about how James Kirk became the youngest Captain in Starfleet.

"Everyone said [Kirk] is too young to become Captain… So maybe in the next movie, somebody goes, ‘Man, you sure became Captain young and fast,’" said screenwriter/producer Roberto Orci to Coming Soon. "You start to incorporate people’s opinions… If it’s organic to the story and you find someone who doesn’t think too highly of Kirk because he maybe skipped a few steps, that’s maybe a fun thing to consider. That comes from a fan reaction and maybe gives you a story point."

Critical feedback about the locations are also being listened to as the Trek team develops their second storyline. "[Fans] wanted more character time with everybody, and, because that was an origin story for Star Trek, everyone had to come in at a certain point," added Orci. "Now everyone is going to be there from the beginning, so they’re going to get that. Everyone sure hated engineering. They thought it looked like a brewery, which it was. I’ll pass that on to J.J. [Abrams] and see what he says."

There's very little news surfacing about the project at this stage of its development, so when one of the actors from last summer's Star Trek mentions the start date for the sequel, it gets noticed. Such a comment came from Bruce Greenwood when he told Hollywood.com that the plan is for filming on the Star Trek sequel to begin in January 2011. Greenwood didn't know if he would be coming back to reprise his role as former Enterprise captain Christopher Pike but he did say that he was "husting for it."

Backstage at the Saturn Awards, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were interviewed by Collider and asked as to the progress of the next Star Trek movie. The duo said they are about halfway through writing the story, and when the big question popped up about whether they had identified who or what the villain will be in the movie, Kurtzman said that they are still "circling" that conundrum.

June 29, 2012. That's when we can expect to see the new cast of Star Trek return for their second cinematic adventure. With the announcement Paramount is the first to claim a prime spot in the summer of '12, the weekend directly in front of the Fourth of July holiday.

No other details were released by the studio. All of the seven principal cast members making up the Enterprise bridge officers have signed on for two sequels, so expect them to stick around for at least another mission.

Coming Soon has posted a rumor they've heard from unidentified sources that, if the sequel to 2009's Star Trek were to go into production today and if the of Khan Noonian Singh were to be in the sequel, that the part would be played by Nestor Carbonell.

The connection between J.J. Abrams' camp and Carbonell is there. On Lost the actor has played the enigmatic character of Richard Alpert, one of The Others who doesn't seem to age.

The site stresses that no decision has yet been made as to whether the new Trek movie will even feature the character of Khan in it.

There's two new bits of talk from people associated to the Star Trek sequel to report from this weekend. A the 2009 Screenwriting Expo screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were asked by Coming Soon's Heather Newgen how things were going on the second movie's storyline. "We're rereading some of our favorite Star Trek novels now and watching the original series again," Orci told the reporter. "The honest answer is we don't know yet. We think it's going to be a 2012 release, but I'm not sure."

Over at the Scream 2009 awards Collider's Steve Weintraub spoke with Karl Urban and asked him the same question. The actor who plays Dr. McCoy said that he believes the plan is to shoot the movie "mid to end next year," and that it would be "great to have another Star Trek out by 2011."

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman spoke with Coming Soon and gave the latest on what's in their minds for the next Star Trek movie's storyline, which they're working on:

• On bringing in villains like The Borg to fight Kirk: "I think we would think about it, because we do love The Next Generation."
• On making the next two Treks back-to-back: "Whether the story prescribes there will be more than one. Part of what is great about Star Trek is that it's a continuing adventure so you naturally think that there will be many, hopefully. But we only focus on what comes next and then build off of that. So, right now we are not thinking specifically about making two and three. It may come up but it's not where our heads are right now."
• On introducing Khan into the altered Trek universe: "There are mental exercises we play with them – in fact ,we even at one point had one conversation I think was all about the first movie. It could have ended on '…and then the Botany Bay floats by.' You can't be fans of this and not sit around one night and go 'What if we…?' So we've gone through probably whatever you've gone through in your minds."
• On what a Star Trek sequel has to live up to: "You need to have been able to not have seen the first movie to appreciate the second one. I think that for us it's always about going back to the sequels that we loved as kids and asking ourselves why we loved them. Empire Strikes Back, Superman 2, Aliens, Terminator 2, Star Trek 2, what do all of those movies have in common? Well, they are amazing stories all on their own. You didn't have to see the first movie. There was some incredibly emotional test of character in all of those movies. Superman has to give up his powers for love. The Spock and Kirk relationship is being tested by Kahn. Ripley finding a daughter, essentially. All of those things are such big ideas in and of themselves. And you really can't tell those kinds of stories in movie #1, because movie #1 is very much about establishing a world."

For those of us searching for any little clue about what to expect in the next Star Trek movie, Zoe Saldana gives us our first true hard fact (if what she was promised pans out.) While talking to a reporter Saldana said, "[With Star Trek] I had so much fun but the boys got all the action. J.J. [Abrams] promised me that in the sequel [Uhura] will have at least one little fight scene. I'm like, 'Just let me kick a guy in the groin or something.'"

In an email to Ain't It Cool News, J.J. Abrams answers a rumor that Jack Black is the guy that is being considered to play the reimagined version of con man Harry Mudd in the Trek sequel. "Yes, talking to Jack Black about doing something -- but not Mudd," wrote the director. J.J. was quick to add that no one has had a meeting yet to discuss story ideas for movie #2 but that "I think that we should have a shitload more lens flares."