Paramount Still Balking At Shatner's Salary, Says Arnold

William Shatner (Kirk) cleared time in his schedule to make an appearance on Star Trek: Enterprise, but Paramount backed out on paying his salary at the last minute, claims a report from the Galileo 7 convention in Neuss, Germany.

The news from the convention, published in German at TrekZone.de, also stated that fans were taken into custody for mobbing Patrick Stewart (Picard) at the airport and confirmed J.G. Hertzler (Martok)'s upcoming appearance in a Vulcan episode of Enterprise.

Trek insider Richard Arnold claimed that Paramount had withdrawn its offer to meet Shatner's salary demands after initially agreeing to them. Other recent reports have claimed that the deal for Shatner's guest appearance on Enterprise was all but finalized.

Hertzler, on the other hand, confirmed that he will play a yet-unnamed Klingon during the upcoming Vulcan arc on Enterprise. The miniseries, which begins with the episode "Vulcan's Forge", concerns attempts to avert a civil war among T'Pol's people.

Stewart, who was protected by Düsseldorf airport security from overzealous fans, said that he was working on producing a film of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Stylistically he wanted it to be like Baz Luhrmann's production of Romeo and Juliet, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Stewart also reportedly told fans that no director has been signed yet for X-Men 3, and no one had consulted him about the planned feature film.

German news from the convention and interviews with some of the stars may be found at TrekZone.de.

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