Ving Rhames has been obsessed for years with the late bad-ass heavyweight champ Sonny Liston and the legendary "phantom punch" that took him down in his last fight with Muhammad Ali.

Now he's finally following through with the movie Phantom Punch, which begins filming Oct. 29 in Toronto with Rhames in the lead and a mostly Canadian cast.

"It's the story of Sonny Liston and it's a relationship story as opposed to a boxing movie," says exec producer Byron A. Martin. "It's about a young guy, coming out of prison, how his life changes as he moves from St. Louis to Philadelphia to Las Vegas, how he gets involved with the mob. It's about his relationship with his wife Geraldine, and with his manager and the people around him."

Robert Townsend is set to direct the film, which at one time had William Friedkin attached. One thing we know for sure is it doesn't have a happy ending. Liston's body was discovered in his Vegas home in January 1971, where it had apparently been for some days. Police called it natural causes, but rumours of drug overdose and a mob hit endure. Rhames himself said in an interview a few years ago, "I know when he died. I know who killed him."

As for the famous fight in May 1965, where what seemed like a light punch knocked Liston to the canvas, Martin says it will likely involve footage and public domain material, "although the hard thing is to use that material, where you see a face and cut away to an actor who doesn't look like him. These are things we'll deal with in post-production."

PINE BEAMED UP: Chris Pine had better start working on his dramatic pauses. The relatively unknown actor will play a young Capt. James T. Kirk in next year's Star Trek reboot. Director Joe Carnahan (who cast Pine as a neo-Nazi biker in Smokin' Aces) posted the news on his blog this week.

Pine joins a cast that includes Zachary Quinto (Heroes) as Mr. Spock, Karl Urban (Doom) as Dr. "Bones" McCoy, Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz) as Scotty, John Cho (Harold and Kumar) as Sulu, Zoe Saldana (Pirates of the Caribbean) as Uhura, and Anton Yelchin (Alpha Dog) as Chekov.

Eric Bana has been set as the villain, a time-travelling Romulan named Nero who aims, Terminator-style, to assassinate Kirk before he saved the universe several times over. Leonard Nimoy's old Spock follows Nero back in time, explaining how old and young Spocks will interact in the film, which is being directed by Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams.

READY TO STRIKE: Star Trek is one of a number of films the studios are scrambling to get in the can before possible strikes next year by the actors and writers' guilds (although the latter union is now threatening to walk much sooner).

Other pre-strike priorities include Justice League of America (George Miller directing a young cast that may include The O.C.'s Adam Brody as the Flash, Transformers' Megan Fox as Wonder Woman and Friday Night Lights' Scott Porter as Superman); heist thriller The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 with Denzel Washington; Yes Man with Jim Carrey as a guy who decides he'll say yes to anything; Da Vinci Code prequel Angels and Demons with Tom Hanks; G.I. Joe, based on the toy line; The Wolfman with Benicio Del Toro; and The Fast and the Furious 4, which will reteam Paul Walker and Vin Diesel.