Scooped by Sneak Peek and confirmed by Playback, the remake of the 1951 sci-fi feature "The Day the Earth Stood Still" for Twentieth Century Fox, has now set up production offices at Vancouver Film Studios, prepping a December 3 start.
Actor Keanu "The Matrix" Reeves will star as the alien 'Klaatu', originated by actor Michael Rennie.
Scott Derrickson will direct with Erwin Stoff producing from a script by David Scarpa.
Premise of the original feature, based on the short story "Farewell To The Master", appearing in pulp magazine "Astounding" (October-1940) by author Harry Bates, begins with a flying saucer circling the world, then landing in Washington D.C. where a man (Michael Rennie) and seven foot tall robot 'Gort' emerge.
The visitor, 'Klaatu', produces a gift for the President, but a soldier panics and shoots the item out of his hand. In retaliation, Gort vaporizes tanks and weapons with laser-vision.
Klaatu is taken to hospital, demanding a meeting with all world leaders, but the nations are too disorganized to agree to his request.
Klaatu eludes his captors, checking into a boarding house under an assumed name, where he meets a beautiful single mother (Patricia Neal).
He contacts scientists to organize a meeting and arranges a demonstration of unearthly means, by stopping all power on Earth for half-an-hour.
After being shot dead, then resurrected by Gort, Klaatu announces to the world that if humanity does not stop the escalation of the nuclear arms race, Gort, and other police-robots line him will destroy the world.
For the new film, it is not known if Fox will adhere to the original short story, set in the future, with 'Gort' (aka 'Gnut') revealed as the true master and 'Klaatu' his servant.