20th Century Fox has decided to move Scott Derrickson’s remake of the classic 1951 sci-fi action film The Day the Earth Stood Still, from Summer to Winter. The film starring Keanu Reeves as an alien visitor named Klaatu, will now hit theaters on December 12th 2008. The movie was originally scheduled to go head to head on May 9th with The Wachowski Brother’s Speed Racer. While this sounds like a smart business move, it actually has nothing to do with competition. The Day the Earth Stood Still hasn’t even begun principal photography, and was moved because it couldn’t meet the Summer release deadline.
The remake will be directed by Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hellraiser: Inferno) from a script by David Scarpa (The Last Castle). The original 1951 Robert Wise film was considered one of the best Science Fiction films of all time (#7 on Arthur C Clarke’s List) and was debated for it’s religious symbolism and many interpretations. Bernard Herrmann score is also notable, partly because of its use of two theremins. The film is currently ranked #187 of all time on IMDb, with a 8.1 rating.
sources: Variety
October 14th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Finally, somebody can remake this old clunker and fix what was wrong with it in the first place. The original needed more action and sex, and less cerebral talky stuff. And that score? Yuck! I never heard any of that music on the radio and there were no hits. The movie needs a lot of metal guitar, especially when Klaatu kicks ass!
And Gort should be a chick - possibly with bionic parts and no emotion who is looking to become human (like Data) and at the end she sings “Calling Occupants” when the smart Earth scientist in the movie makes her an emotion chip thus saving the day (because Gort falls in love with the scientist, thus spurning Klaatu, who leaves in disgust at Warp 10 shouting “You people of Earth are idiots! Your stupid minds. Stupid. STUPID!” and his engines cause the Earth to start rotating again).
That would be awesome.
And to top it off, after the credits there could be a post-script. We see Klaatu in his ship with a pad of paper. On it is written “Plan 8: Convince Earthlings to stop their evil ways by halting the rotation of the Earth”. And then we see him cross this out and write “Plan 9: …” (we don’t quite see what he writes after this). The camera pans over and in a stasis chamber we see a vampire. Fade to black. To Be Continued?
f-