Rumors have been flying across the Web fan sites for weeks that comedian Tyler Perry (“Madea’s Family Reunion”) would be in the next Star Trek movie, but we simply wanted to wait for official confirmation before making it public here at Slice. Now, we can confirm that Tyler Perry will indeed be seen in the eleventh Star Trek feature film.

Perry is a major force in Hollywood, serving as a standup comedian, actor, director, producer and writer of both film and television.

Paramount announced that the filmmaker will take on the role as head of Starfleet Academy, joining the already confirmed casting of Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine and Eric Bana as the principal leads.

Also in the film will be Winona Ryder, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Karl Urban, Chris Hemsworth, Zoe Saldana and Clifton Collins Jr.

The plot will cover the very early days of the iconic classic Trek characters before they were fixtures aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise.

J.J. Abrams is producer and director. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are responsible for the script as well as executive producers with Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk.

“Star Trek” will open to wide theatrical release on December 25, 2008.