New Zealand actor Karl Urban of “The Lord of the Rings,” “The Chronicles of Riddick” and “The Bourne Supremacy” has signed on to portray Starfleet Medical doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy for the new Paramount Pictures “Star Trek” mega-budget feature film.

Abrams had indicated that he was looking for an older than twenty-something actor to play McCoy since the original character portrayed by the late and great DeForest Kelly was older than all of his cast mates. It was rumored for quite some time that Gary Sinise was in the running for the part. Urban was also on that short list and the 35-year old actor from Wellington ultimately got the part. Urban was most recently seen in the action period film called “Pathfinder.” He is wrapping up the shoot for the crime drama “Black Water Transit” and is in pre-production for the thriller titled “Run.” The actor will soon be seen in a television miniseries Western with Val Kilmer called “Comanche Moon.”

Urban joins previously announced cast members Chris Pine as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy reprising his famous role as the older Spock, Zachary Quinto (“Heroes”) as the young Vulcan Spock, Simon Pegg as engineer Scotty, John Cho as helmsman Sulu, Zoe Saldana as communications officer Uhura and Anton Yelchin as navigator Chekov. Also, as we mentioned in an earlier story, on board is Eric Bana (“Hulk” “Munich”) as one of the major villains.

Filming on the new J.J. Abrams project begins in just a few weeks with a scheduled release date of December 25, 2008.