It looks like we may see the hero of the 2009 Star Trek movie take on the villain from the Star Trek movie before that. A new report says that Tom Hardy has signed on to the action comedy This Means War, starring alongside Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon. More details below.
Pine v Hardy
Back in May Star Trek’s new Kirk Chris Pine signed up for the action comedy This Means War, which pits two spies against each other fighting over the favors of a girl (Reese Witherspoon). Terminator Salvation’s Sam Worthington was signed on to play the other guy, but he left the project leaving an opening. Now New York Magazine’s Vulture Blog is reporting that Tom Hardy, Star Trek Nemesis’ bad guy Shinzon, has signed on to replace Worthington. Hardy has been getting more buzz lately, for his role in the Christopher Nolan’s Inception, and Hardy is also cast as the next Mad Max.
“Inception” interview with Tom Hardy
This Means War has been in development hell in Hollywood for a decade with many different actors attached over the years. Pine is currently lined up to film the Star Trek sequel and the next Jack Ryan movie over the next year. If This Means War wants to get going, it will have to get started soon.
I’d really like to see Malcolm Macdowell (kirk-prime killer) and Chris Pine in a same production. Maybe Malcolm will kill kirk again in a new production.
I never knew Hardy had so many tats! I’m trying to recall Nemesis… did we see his arms in them?
Chris Pine and Tom Hardy playing two men fighting over Reese Witherspoon??
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA……………….
(wipes tear)
Talk about an unrealistic premise!
What, the loser gets her?
inception was a good film. It is great to see Tom Hardy getting some high profile attention! good for you, Tom!
Yeah, Inception was a good film, and Hardy was great in it.
Too bad Nemesis was so terrible.
I remember Rick Berman gushing at how Hardy will become a popular actor in hollywood. Who knew he was right about something.
Good for him. Never really had a problem with Nemesis to be honest.
Why oh why did it have to be an actor from Nemesis?
They could have cast Wil Wheaton instead of Hardy. Yes, even Wil Wheaton would be preferable to the tinge of Nemesis that is Tom Hardy, methinks.
Just joshin’. I’m pleased that the two are going to be working together, and much luck to them.
And I like Wheaton, too. Nice guy.
Shinzon did nothing for me as a character but Hardy was great in Inception.
I can’t decide which actor is hotter… quick — beam me to deep space before I blow-up!
I want to see Pine do the wood choping scene from Generations
i tell you what woud be great – as a result of this George Miller dumps Hardy and casts Mel as Max in Fury Road!!
I hope other Star Trek actors appear in this as well. and that Tom Hardy joins the Hollywood A-list and does more Hollywood mainstream movies. I remember first being introduced to him in Star Trek: Nemesis but the world took no notice of him until the last couple of years. I hope they release Warrior very soon as well in which he co-stars with the incredibly gorgeous Jennifer Morrison (who was also in a Star Trek movie), Hollywood legend Nick Nolte and famous wrestler Kurt Angle.
I liked Nemesis. I have always maintained that part of the reason for its failure is that it was released at the same time as 3 huge blockbusters (Die Another Day, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings). I have always wondered if they held off for a few months, would it have faired better. I have to believe it would have. Sure it was not Wrath of Khan or Voyage Home, but certainly worthy of Star Trek, IMHO. Paramount did seem to learn a little lesson when they decided to hold Star Trek (2009) for a few months until there wasn’t as much stiff competition.
Tom Hardy was fine in Nemesis. I’m always glad to see Star Trek alum be successful. It only reflects positively on Star Trek.
#2–Schinzon’s uniform had long sleeves.
Being in Nemesis probably slowed Tom Hardy’s rise to popularity instead of helping it.
More amazing how the cast of Trek 2009 has exploded since Trek. Not that they weren’t well on their way, but with tons of media coverage, it certainly propelled all of them.
#11-Really?? I want to hear him say, “Dillweed!”
Y’know, I sat thru INCEPTION beating my brains trying to remember where I’d seen “that actor” before. Now I know!
It’s funny, the star of the most hated ST movie appearing with the star of the most loved ST movie (after TWOK)!
Personally, I love NEMESIS – I probably enjoy it more than ST2009 – and I think Hardy’s really gifted & has tons of presence on screen. I think it’s cool, Hardy & Pine together! Maybe Hardy can kick some ass for Romulus ;)
I am so tired of all this NEMESIS bashing. I love it, too. More than ST09. It had soul, the dialogues were great. Picard/Shinzon scenes are among the best acted in the whole franchise.
I just wish Paramount would release a full extended edition with all 50 minutes of film reedited into the run-time. Then the film would probably beat FC in my all time favorite list.
NEMESIS was dark, epic and emotional. It was a great send off for the TNG crew and it does not deserve the bashing. Criticism maybe, but senseless bashing – no!
Nemesis was great right up until the wedding scene
I liked Nemesis too, but certainly not more than ST09, and certainly not because it was “dark.”
I can never understand how a Star Trek FAN can value a “dark” style and premise in Star Trek! Star Trek is the “anti-dark” sci-fi. If you like “dark” so much, what the hell are you doing watching Star Trek to begin with??
Not trying to be adversarial…just genuinely confused sometimes when I read that kind of stuff.
#11 “I want to see Pine do the wood choping scene from Generations”
I liked that moment. Kirk smiles at Picard and says, “Beautiful day.” :-) As bad as Generations was in many ways. Shatner positively oozed charisma, as always. Some of my other favorite little Kirk moments from that film:
“The 24th century isn’t so tough.” (Cut from final edit of film)
“Scotty, keep things together for me til I get back.” “I always do.”
and of course…
“Risk is part of the game if you want to sit in that chair.”
“Star Trek Nemesis” was a regular trek movie, but it didn´t have the novelty and the “wow” factor of a “Matrix” or “Lord of the Rings” or “Spiderman” or a “Star Wars”. Tough competition.
Otherwise, a scene like having the big E crashing on another ship would have a bigger impact.
It would be a better movie with all the deleted scenes.
I liked the Scimitar..which looks like the Shadows from Babylon 5 and i liked the scene with the little ship crashing a giant window, like in Babylon 5, and the green nebula just like in…wait. :P
The one thing I hate on this site seems to be the Rick Berman bashing.
Anyway Tom Hardy was great in Nemesis despite the film’s flaws
I remain adament in my belief that Shinzon was a better villain than Nero.
All this Nesesis bashing and TNG fans wonder why there will be no new TNG projects. You should listen to yourselves. All this bashing is probably part of the reason JJ Abrams was given the green light by Paramount to create an alternate timeline.
Tom making headlines today……………..
http://www.mailonline.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1298384/Inception-hunk-Tom-Hardy-admits-Ive-sexual-relations-men.html
Perhaps not the biggest revelation of all time.
There are legitimate reasons to bash Nemesis. I’m not saying I hated it, it was alright, but there were many flaws. Many elements seemed contrived for the sake of the plot and the character arcs and dozens of things were ripped from other Trek movies in an unappealing and cannibalistic way. It may have been enjoyable to some degree on the surface, but I don’t think it had much depth to it. I think their intentions were to make a movie as good as TWOK and retire the TNG crew as well as the TOS crew in TUC, but I think they just fell short and it shows. Some people might bash Nemesis because it’s popular and fashionable to do so in the Trek community but some might be bashing it because there are real flaws to it (in my opinion). To those criticizing the ‘bashers’, please keep that in mind.
Well, I’m not necessarily calling for another TNG TV series. I’m calling for another Trek TV series, which could be in any era, including the post-Archer-but- pre-Kirk era. There are lots of great stories that could be told in that vast chasm of time when humanity is getting its feet wet, particularly in the Alternate Timeline (to avoid foregone conclusions).
And, any TNG-era TV series need not evoke Bermanism itself.
I actually love TNG. My ranking of Trek series goes something like this: TOS, TNG-DS9 (tie), VOY, and ENT. TNG and DS9 are both Berman-led productions. My slightly less than enthusiastic take on NEM certainly isn’t because I don’t like Bermanism or the universe developed under his direction. In fact, I think that aside from Roddenberry and a few of the TOS producers, who deserve primary credit for the Trek universe as a whole, Berman and some of the TNG-DS9-era writers deserve great credit for how popular Trek became in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
My problem with NEM is that it was too slow, too dark, too depressing, and it didn’t have the right balance of action, plot, special effects, and character development. To me, it just didn’t. The action was too slow; after the criticism of INS for lacking in the respect, many of us we looking for a return to ST:FC-style action and suspense. But instead what we got seemed as slow as molasses.
I’m not saying that the action wasn’t interesting, but something in the execution was lacking. That, and the quantity of it, perhaps.
The film was also physically dark. At times it seemed that someone had simply forgotten to pay the utility bill. It’s perfectly okay to have a physically dark film, except that, in combination with the slow pace of action, it was a wonder that people simply didn’t fall asleep. If a dark theater and slow action isn’t an invitation to snooze, then I really don’t know what is.
The plot, in the right hands, could have been compelling, but, again, it was the execution that seemed lacking to me. We see Picard paralyzed with indecision — weak, in other words, and incapable. This is not the Picard we have come to know and love. Picard has survived the loss of his own soul through the Borg; we know he is made of sterner stuff. So why would he be in such a state? And what happened to Riker, besides? The Enterprise-E seemed entirely powerless, and that doesn’t make much sense. Assistance from Romulan Warbirds seemed an afterthought, and didn’t do much to advance the plot. By the way, what happened to the Romulans after the entire Senate was assassinated? That whole thread seemed to have been forgotten, when so much could have been made of it. The story, as told, didn’t seem to be told well.
Characterization. Well, there’s so much that could be said, but I don’t have the time at the moment.
I don’t have any animus against NEM. I think it’s a good film, because it’s a Trek film. And I like Trek. But we also have to be realistic about where it ranks in the pantheon of Trek films, and how well it was received even by most fans in general. On that score, it was a disappointment.
However, I did like much of the score; I loved seeing the TNG crew again; I enjoyed seeing the Enterprise-E. There were many good things about the film that I enjoyed. I just enjoyed it a bit less than most other Trek films and episodes.
About the link: I guess I’m old-school, but I do think that there is such a thing as having too much personal information out there in the ether.
27. Agree, watching Picard looking so fragile and powerless, filled with doubts over such a trivial routine matter, a silly clone, was sad and out of character.
28. This is what young americans like to say: “this was an overshare”
Damn tabloids.
I believe it became fashionable to pile on the Nemesis Bash express because the movie didn’t make any money. It didn’t make money because fans didn’t buy a ticket. Fans didn’t buy tickets because the plot and script were on the internet a year before the release of the film. If you know what’s going to happen in a film, why not wait for the DVD, which a lot of fans did.
and add to that, as patrick has stated, there was a large degree of franchise fatigue around at the time. I think that undoubtedly true.
It’s a symptom of my inherent Trek geekiness that I always feel bad saying anything even slightly negative about Trek.
Not that Trek is strictly comparable to friends, but it’s still, in a way, kind of like saying that I prefer one friend over another. You feel kind of icky saying you like one film or episode better than another, and you kind of hope that you’re not wrong about it or that you’re being biased about it.
You also kind of hope that the friend you have just praised, indirectly or indirectly, doesn’t do something embarassing, or conversely, that the friend that you (sort of) damned with faint praise doesn’t do something that makes you feel even worse, like send you a nice gift or card or something, or throw you a surprise party.
Hmm…. I think I may be abusing the metaphor. Okay, I’ll stop now.
Tom Hardy needs a Star Trek redemption… JJ get him in the next film as a different character! A good guy this time! Perhaps as Gary Mitchell or some other character…
additionally of note: observe the interview closely and see how similar tom’s mannerisms are to patrick’s these days… its eery really LOL
#23
Its not just Rick Berman who gets bashed on this site. I always read comments bashing William Shatner, J.J Abrams, and James Cawley.
Bashing Shatner and Abrams gets tired and grates on me after awhile, but the worst is when people slam James Cawley about his hair or say how he should step aside from acting IN HIS OWN PRODUCTIONS which he pays for out of his own pockets and gives us for free.
I have to agree with the people who claim Hardy did a decent job with Nemesis and doesn’t deserve any bashing; Hardy was a fresh face in my opinion and his acting in ‘nemesis’ was quite good mostly, especially when he’s having to compete with someone of Patrick Stewarts reputation – he did a damb good job actually I think…
Nemesis probably did poor at the box office because of the other major movies out at the time, such as Bond, Lord of the Rings and the second Harry Potter film.
Insurrection is probably a worse movie when trully compared to Nemesis, and yet ‘INS’ ended up doing over $40 million more globally than NEM. I just think the competition at that time was ridiculous for Star Trek to compete with – If Nemesis has opened in January 2003 it might have done a lot better that pre-christmas.
In a way, it’s sad that the last two films the TNG crew were associated with were disappointments, possibly to different sets of fans. The TNG crew were in some ways the most mainstream, the most conventional, and therefore, for whatever reason, the “coolest” to be associated with to that point. (Kirk was always cool, but — for example — to be Spock wasn’t, particularly.) Picard also benefited from association with the actor portraying him, who had an impressive Shakespearean resume and had an English accent, besides. (Yes, I do know Shatner was a Shakespearean actor, too.) And you got the feeling that the TNG crew was supremely confident and competent, at least from their series, as well as nearly perfect and evolved. By comparison, the characters in DS9 had intrinsic flaws that, despite making them more human, didn’t recommend them as “cool.”
Face it: During the run of TNG, which, among the mainstream public, was “cooler”: Picard or Sisko? Riker or Spock? The very beautiful Dr. Crusher or the cantankerous Dr. McCoy?
And yet TNG’s only cinematic hit was ST:FC. Even Generations was only a qualified hit, in that it wasn’t universally critically acclaimed, and starred the TOS crew as well.
I think there is something to be said for the opinion that the TNG crew deserved better than to be remembered solely for INS or NEM. I think that they live on, in the minds of many Trek fans, as truly exemplary characters who are worthy of admiration. The fact that mainstream audiences abandoned them in their last two movies should not be a commentary on their merit, and simply a reminder that All Good Things must come to an end.
#36-
(I say this with great sadness):
Welcome to the typical Internet Star Trek fan.
#26 Ashley-
There is a big difference between mean-spirited, immature, cry-baby “bashing” and debating something / offering unpopular points of view like an intelligent and mature person.
Please keep THAT in mind.
Khan rip-off meets Kirk rip-off.
LOL.
41-
Come, come, Mr. Scott. Young minds, fresh ideas. Be tolerant!
I quite enjoyed Hardy in NEM. I remember thinking at the time he was the only actor on the screen that even cared. The rest of the TNG cast were “mailing it in” in MHO.
I try not to be snarky, but in this case I just can’t resist. Don’t get me wrong here. As a Gay man, Tom can park his shoes under my bed any time….
But maybe he should consider using some of his income on fixing his teeth. I remember watching NEM and thinking “Romulans have bad teeth? That’s a new twist. We all know the Klingons do”. Now I come to find those are his real teeth, and not to mention those ears (they actually look half-Romulan).
What some saw in Picard as weak, I saw as reflective. Really, the whole theme was, would Picard be Schinzon if he were in his place. Picard vehemently denies it, but he also wonders at time, is he right? As far as the film being literally dark, they explained that the Remans were sensitive to light. The Enterprise was bright (the good guys), the Scimitar dark (the bad guys). Kind of literal symbolism. I thought the special effects were good for not being done by ILM. Goldsmith’s music was top notch as always. Don’t get me wrong, there were things that could have been done better. But I do believe, really, the reason it did so poorly was the stiff competition at the time. Paramount screwed up with releasing it when they did. It was never going to be a blockbuster, but it was never given a chance to be at least a minor hit for the time.
44, some very good points, indeed. But, to be honest, I would rather think that starship commanders should be reflect on their time off and not while in the middle of the fight. I realize that Picard is a philosopher-king kind of captain, but, honestly, that was ridiculous. No one contemplates philosophy in the middle of a phaser fight. The fact that he did made the plot seem rather dumb, even if by other lights it wasn’t.
Speaking of lights, I realize that the Remans wanted darkness all over the place. But then, so did the Sith Lords of Star Wars fame, since they were both literally and figuratively into the “Dark” Side. (Notice that the Emperor’s Throne Room is quite literally dark in all the SW movies.) But Lucas’s cinematographers had always managed to keep the audiences OUT of the literal dark (though less so as the movies wore on). For example, I distinctly remember Empire Strikes Back as a very physically bright movie (possibly because much of it took place on a snow planet). By contrast, even though Picard in his rather odd jeep excursion sequence had to wear shades on NEM’s version of an alien planet, NEM still seemed dark.
Don’t get me wrong — I still like NEM. I think it was a grand experiment in style and it had its moments. I think of it as sombre, but also magnificent, in its own way. And Hardy’s performance was NOT bad at all. It’s just that the faults I mentioned, I think, could be seen, and we have the luxury of being honest about them now that cinematic Trek is in a healthy condition once again.
Given the question of whether NEM should have been a much, much better movie than it turned out to be, I would say yes, definitely — but in some ways I am, still, not aghast it was made the way it was. After all, it was a Trek film, and in that sense, any Trek film is better than none, notwithstanding its effect on mainstream audiences. And admittedly, I’m trying to be positive here….
34. Gary Mitchell might be interesting. Would he stick around?
I always found Kirk’s pre-Enterprise days kind of interesting, but maybe that’s been done to death in all the Treks (sudden appearances of old flames and old academy buddies). I guess there are three years of his new academy days that we don’t know about…
#44 Picard was refelecting when he should have been saving his ship. Terrible stuff.
Regarding any gary mitchel story: How can you top being god?
Many say that nemesis was dark..I agree,
The brightest moment was the wedding,
The romulan high council gets killed, Then the movie got very depressing. B-4 charmed us, Then Shinzon becomes extremely ill, Troy is assaulted, The romulans come to the rescue, Get beaten up. A series of never ending bruises on the audience and even when the mood lightens for some humor, we are still feeling all the pain from being mentally beaten up for 2 hours. Like a Bad weird dream.
Plus side: Exellent special effects and sound
I thought tom hardy was exellent, but I never accepted the clone thing. That totally killed it for me, Shinzon looked absolutey nothing like Picard.
In Nemesis, Picard shows a picture of himself when he was at the academy, I laughed to myself, This is supposed to fix it?
Chris pine? He might want to be his own kirk, I hope he dosent repeat too much of his old kirk..please no wacky stuff like today’s shatner.
I want to bag on NEM just a TINY bit more, because I think that it’s the details that count, and they bothered me a bit when I saw the movie. And because I love Trek and we can afford to bash it a tad now that Trek is on firm footing again.
1. The capital city of the Romulan Star Empire did not impress me. It was too small. It looked kind of like the Romulan version of Irvine, California. How difficult would it have been to make it look more like, say, Coruscant?
2. The Romulan Senate did not impress me. It was too small. It looked like the Romulan version of a fancy city hall. How difficult would it have been to make it look more, say, the U.S. Senate?
3. I still don’t understand what Donatra was doing in the movie. What was her sequence for? Was it a setup to have her be instrumental in a future detente between the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire? Was it so that she could have Romulan ale with Picard at some future point? I mean, what?
4. I didn’t like that, or how, they killed Data. (Oops — spoiler alert! Don’t read the following if you haven’t seen the movie: They killed Data!) The way that they found B-4 also seemed very contrived. Exactly why would Shinzon use the “follow the android parts” method to entice Picard to his lair? Can someone explain this to me? I mean, besides the fact that they wanted to give Data a chance to be resurrected in a as-it-turned-out-never-to-be-made TNG-based movie sequel.
I think there could have been a better way to resurrect Data, and that would have been to make him a hologram. In fact, Data should have always had a version him copied on the massive Enterprise computer core, and on some Starbase, besides. They were able to accurately simulate humanity with the Holodoc in VOY, so why not make a “Data” backup? (Sorry for the bad pun.) The excuse may be that Data’s positronic brain was simply too difficult to backup using nonpositronic technology, but this never seemed to affect the Holodoc’s personhood. So what’s the deal?
I could go on and on, but no one ever asks me about these things. Nor do they ask me to write the scripts for any of the Trek movies or episodes, because I’m just some nobody who loves Trek rather than someone who Berman happened to approve to write NEM or a similarly excellent screen treatment. (Grumble, grumble.) Life ain’t fair, I tells ya. Life ain’t fair.
;-)
All right. I just read the Memory Alpha plot summary on NEM and realized that B-4 served as an agent for Shinzon, downloading information on the Federation and transmitting it to him. However, for this to work, Shinzon would have had to have relied on the Federation to permit B-4 free rein all over the Enterprise, as well as B-4’s ability to compromise the Enterprise computer’s safeguards against precisely this sort of thing. If Shinzon was sophisticated enough to implant a secret subroutine into B-4’s positronic brain that even Data apparently could not detect, I don’t know why he would bother with taking the risk that B-4 would fail at his task, and not simply, instead, beam the information directly from the Enterprise’s computers.
Recall that Shinzon possessed technology advanced enough to compromise the Enterprise’s shields, as shown by his ability to beam his own hologram to confront Picard in the latter’s ready room. If Shinzon had the programming expertise to decipher and repurpose alien (Federation) technology represented by B-4’s positronic brain in such manner, he should have been able to do the same to the Enterprise’s less-advanced, nonpositronic computers. So why the Rube Goldberg-like scheme with B-4 to begin with?
And wasn’t it awfully convenient that the Enterprise-E just happened to be close enough range of Kolarus to divert itself to pick up B-4?
I know, I know. Suspension of disbelief.
Look — I’ll admit that they made an effort to fit the B-4 thread into the rest of the movie. But I still think it could have been done better and more convincingly.