People are signing contracts left and right, though not all of them make sense.  The biggest news is that there is another warm body aboard the Starship Enterprise.  The Hollywood Reporter says that Anton Yelchin is on the fast track to becoming Pavel Chekov in the new Trek film under director J.J. "I'm also working on six other projects, many of which don't have official names" Abrams.  Yelchin  has appeared in Huff and "Alpha Dog" and has plenty of buzz about him as a capable young actor.  The problem?  In the original series, Chekov was barely out of the Academy, and that not until season two.  If this really is the Starfleet Academy adventures of Kirk & company, they ought to be hiring someone who's about ten.

Over in "Death Race" remakeland, things are also a bit skewed from before.  Joan Allen (The Bourne Ultimatum) joins the cast but the plot is not what it used to be.  Instead of the satirical plotline of the original, where racers competed happily in a cross-country event racking up points by running over civilians, this film will portray "a future America in which prison inmates are forced to brutally compete in an enclosed arena. Statham will play a prisoner who, with only weeks to go before his release, is coerced into being a driver and becomes the crowd favorite called Frankenstein."  Allen plays the warden that forces Statham into the race.  One assumes she will be a greasespot by the end.

In "Watchmen" news, Carla Gugino (Threshold) has signed on as Sally Jupiter, a burlesque dancer-turned-costumed heroine the Silk Spectre.  Jupiter was part of the Minutemen, the heroing group that preceded the Watchmen, and becomes the mother of the new Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman).

Finally, the rumor mill (at least as far as TV Guide is concerned) is pegging Kristen Bell as a new recurring character on ABC's Lost.  More as we find out.