Bad news for Trekkies hoping that this year’s Star Trek Beyond would feature a cameo worthy of the franchise’s 50th anniversary.
William Shatner has revealed that, as far as he knows, there was never any truth to the rumors that he’d appear as the original James T. Kirk alongside Chris Pine’s rebooted starship captain.
“There was never a conversation,” Shatner told SFX Magazine about a potential appearance in the movie, the third Trek since the franchise’s 2009 reboot.
“It would have been interesting to see what their fertile imaginations could have done with somebody who is 20 years older than when Captain Kirk died [in 1994’s Star Trek: Generations] and how they would have explained the difference in appearance. But that never came up,” the actor continued. “I’m sure they must have thought of it one time or another, but I never had a substantial conversation about replaying the role.”
At one point in the development of the feature, Shatner’s Kirk was rumored to appear alongside Leonard Nimoy’s Spock in a brief cameo. That scene — if it actually existed — would have been replaced when Simon Pegg and Doug Jung replaced Roberto Orci as writers on the movie in early 2015, starting over from scratch.
Star Trek Beyond is set to open July 22, ahead of the half-century anniversary of the franchise on Sept. 8.
