Simon Pegg Is Scotty in Suddenly Comedic ‘Star Trek’ Reboot

Pegg to Beam You Up: Look, it’s not that we’re trying to talk about J. J. Abrams every single day, it’s that he does something newsworthy every single day. We can’t help it! Why, just today he cast Simon Pegg, the star and co-writer of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, in the critical role of Scotty in his Star Trek reboot. See? [Ain’t It Cool News]

Parker Joins Revolution: Sarah Jessica Parker stars in Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s feature debut, an adaptation of Amy Cohen’s The Late Bloomer’s Revolution, about a woman who bonds with her widowed father over the travails of the dating world. Let’s hope something starring The Rock opens the same weekend. [Variety]

Snyder Takes Last Photograph: 300 and Watchmen director Zack Snyder will direct The Last Photograph, based on his own idea about two men traveling through a war-torn Afghanistan populated entirely by men with rippling abs. [Variety]

Cage a Wrestler: Nicolas Cage is in talks to star in the indie The Wrestler, about a washed-up pro wrestler trying to build a relationship with an aging stripper and her son who is tempted to defy his doctor’s orders for a chance to wrestle his archenemy, “The Ayatollah.” Project offers Cage a record number of ways to be terrible in a single film. [HR]

Langella Opens the Box: Frank Langella joins Cameron Diaz in Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly’s horror film The Box as a mysterious man who presents the titular item to Diaz. Basic horror-movie rules, people: Don’t wander off, turn on the lights before you go in the basement, and don’t accept mysterious boxes from Frank Langella. [Variety]

Broadway Desperation Stench Intensifies: Christopher Lloyd, George Hearn, and Carol Kane will appear in two invitation-only readings of the Broadway-bound Grumpy Old Men: The Musical in Manhattan this November. Man, the Times was right: Broadway is hot for the tween-girl audience. [Playbill]

Wait, Wait, Just One More J.J. Abrams Item!: Just hear us out! John Cho, or Harold from modern-day masterpiece Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, joins the aforementioned Star Trek project as the new Sulu. It’s the comedy of the year! [HR]