Shatner Confirms He’s Been Asked To Be In STAR TREK 3

Last week I revealed that Roberto Orci had an idea for a scene in Star Trek 3 - which will be released in the franchise's 50th anniversary year - that would reunite William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy as Kirk and Spock. When I ran the story I expected the usual denials, especially since it's so early in the process. To his credit, Orci did it classier than JJ Abrams did on Into Darkness - rather than lie, he simply said he couldn't confirm or deny. William Shatner did take to Twitter to flat-out deny it. But then this weekend he was at Wizard World Nashville and I guess all the internet chatter confused Shat. He thought it had been officially announced, and so he went and confirmed it all, saying that Abrams had in fact given him a call asking if he wanted to make a cameo. And Shatner said yes. Here's the transcript, courtesy of TrekMovie:

The weirdest thing has happened and I think I can tell you because it is so weird. So I’m in Australia a couple of weeks ago…and JJ Abrams calls me. He called me in Los Angeles and I’m not there, so my assistant calls me and says “JJ called and is going to call back.” I said “great” and hung up the phone "I wonder what JJ wants?" Because the last time I talked to JJ was before the first movie came out and I went to meet him at his office and he said "are you interested in being in the Star Trek movie?" "And I would play the captain?" "No, no. Not as Captain Kirk. We have a young, handsome guy to do that." But he handed a script and I read it, and it stunk…It is like telling people “You know that little cute baby you got there. It is the ugliest thing I have ever seen!” So I didn’t say that to JJ. This is the worst script I have ever read and it is the next Star Trek movie and the beginning of the whole thing and it was awful! Turns out it wasn’t the script at all…He was assessing whether people were interested in being in the movie and handing them a dummy script because the final movie was really good, but it wasn’t the script that I read.

So now I get this call and he is going to call me back and a week and a half goes by and he never called me. I wonder if he is going to call me? Maybe it is a trick? Maybe it is TMZ? Could he be that cruel. So he calls and says "I’m calling, Bill, because the director of the Star Trek movie, the next one, has had an idea where you might be involved in it. So I am calling to see if you would be interested." I said "Oh, yeah. If it is meaningful." When Leonard was Spock in that first movie, I said to Leonard "you know when you go back in time you are still old." So it depends on what you do with the character. I said "I would be delighted." And he said "you can’t say anything." And I said "I wont even tell my wife. I wont tell anyone. I wouldn’t do that, JJ."

So I get back from Australia and it is all over the Internet, that the director held an interview and said they wanted Shatner and Nimoy to be in the next movie. I bet JJ is frothing at the mouth. So the news is out that they have an idea that they want Leonard and myself. They might want Leonard and myself . I don’t know what to do with it. How do you get me fifty years later into the movie…I know it’s science fiction, but even I couldn’t come up with an idea.

I've now had two different sources tell me about this scene in Star Trek 3 and I'll say that the idea is... interesting. We'll see how it plays out in the final film.