Cumberbaaaatch!

Wonder who gave
them that idea?

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch is no longer allowed to act. He's done. Why? Because he got greedy. He's going to be the voice of Smaug the dragon in movie version of The Hobbit which is one of my favorite books ever. And that would be ok, but according to this, he's also going to voice the Necromancer in that movie. So that makes two characters I don't even remember having lines, but I guess Peter Jackson needs to flesh it out a bit to justify stretching Tolkien's shortest Middle-earth book into two movies. Speaking of which, what's up with that? Is there any reason The Hobbit can't be covered in one movie? It's almost like New Line Cinema is trying to milk the franchise for...but that would mean that the film industry is more interested in making money than creating art, and that can't be right, can it?

So back to Benedict Cummerbund. Who the hell is he? Well, he plays Sherlock in the Sherlock Holmes series set in 21st century London.

Not pictured: Benedict Cumberbatch. This is Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century.
It's a cartoon that asked the question: 'What if Sherlock Holmes's corpse was reanimated in
the 2100's, reunited with Watson's head on a robot body and solved future crime?" 

"It's morphin' time bub."

And that's fine. Sherlock's good, Cumberlump is good. Fine. But he's also going to play The Master in the next season of Doctor Who. Yeah, the Master. Ok, so he's Sherlock, Smaug, The Necromancer (whoever the hell that is) and The Master. Ok, certainly that's enough geek cred to set one actor up for life. Right? He's like the Wolverine of British actors-Wait, what's that? You have a life? Oh, sorry. That's a reference to how Wolverine's been a member of like every superhero team ever. Ever. I'll have to check on this but I think he was even a Power Ranger at one point.

To prepare for the role, Cumberbatch
will have his chest Armor All'ed.

Anyway, that's not enough for Benedict Bandersnatch. He's also going to play the villain in the Star Trek sequel. And he's not even some new bad guy, apparently he's freaking Khan. Yeah, that's right, Bandicoot Crumblebum is playing Khan Noonian Sing, you know, the genetically enhanced dictator from the Eugenics wars of the late 20th century (remember when those happened?). The writers insist they're not rehashing The Wrath of Khan and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt but holy shit, again with Khan? And seriously, he's supposed to be from India, what's up with that?

Yeah, I know Khan was originally played by Hispanic actor Ricardo Montalban (who was also not Indian) but in 2012 could they seriously not find an actual Indian guy to play him this time? That's just greedy Blunderbuss.

Like most Americans, I'm only really aware of one Indian movie and it's Slumdog Millionaire.
And while I've only seen it once, I'm pretty sure I counted at least 40,000 Indian actors.
So what's up with Paramount's casting department? Is Cumberbatch's agent just that good?