JJ Abrams loves to aim high on everything these days and it usually works out pretty well for us. In recent news on Abram’s effort to continue the Star Trek series we heard he was trying to get Tom Cruise to come in and play Kirk’s predecessor (a brief role in the story). Doesn’t look like he’ll stop there though as he wants a big face for the dark side of the story as well. IGN is reporting that Abrams is hoping to land Russell Crowe as Star Trek 11’s villain:

Paramount is trying to woo none other than Oscar winner Russell Crowe to play the film’s villain. Our source seriously doubted that Paramount and Abrams could land the busy star, who has Body of Lies and Nottingham on his schedule in the coming months. Still, the search for a strong actor and commanding presence such as Crowe suggests that the story’s villain could very well be, like Kirk, a leader of men — a role that Crowe is utterly believable in.

Sure, Crowe wouldn’t be too bad. But instead of firing photon missiles at Kirk I imagine we’d see him running around with a war chest full of cell phones to throw. “Take that, arrggh!” Apparently I’m also imagining Crowe would be a pirate in this role.