July
25
Comic-Con: Reeve's Alien Judges Humans in Day Earth Stood Still
It will be interesting to see how much interest there is today in the remake of Robert Wise's 1951 sci-fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still. One trend at Comic-Con is star managers pushing clients who are fans of a remakeable brand-name project. Erwin Stoff pitched Keanu Reeves for this one 15 years ago, and Rick Yorn pitched Benicio del Toro for Wolfman after seeing the poster in his house.
Stars always need tentpole movies. And Reeves seems to be a good fit for the alien Klaatu; he has an ethereal stillness to him that works in the footage we saw in Hall H Thursday. "'That guy can play the alien,'" Reeves joked to Stoff, who liked the idea of a movie that looks at the denizens of earth from an alien POV, Stoff said.
Director Scott Derrickson was also a fan of the original and actually met Wise when he was still a film student. Wise told him to do a horror film to show his stuff. And so he did, with The Exorcism of Emily Rose. "The original film was such a product of its time," said Derrickson. "The idea of updating it made sense. We're not dealing with a nuclear threat. The U.N. exists. The issues are different. The idea of an alien coming to earth who looks at human nature from an outsider perspective is an interesting take. In some ways it's about what it mean to be human."
"There was an objectifying and containment to him," said Reeves, who says this interpretation of the character is less "warm and fuzzy and human. I'm not that guy. He goes on a journey of seeing and looking and being affected by humans."
The relationship of Jennifer Connelly and her stepson (Happyness star Jaden Smith) shows Klaatu what humans are all about.
Derrickson completely reimagined the look of the alien technology as more organic and "ecological," he said. Wellywood's Weta Digital is beavering away on the elaborate VFX.
Comic-Con Photo Gallery: FOX (Includes The Day The Earth Stood Still)
Subscribe to this blog's feed
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfc7553ef00e553b957ac8833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Comic-Con: Reeve's Alien Judges Humans in Day Earth Stood Still :
Comments