Sci-Fi Storm

Twentieth Century Fox has found a star for its remake of the classic The Day The Earth Stood Still in Keanu Reeves. Keanu will play Klaatu, a humanoid who arrives on Earth with a giant robot, warning humans that they will face destruction if they don’t change. Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) will direct.

We haven’t heard anything for 3 and a half years (I really need to start a page to track these things), but Morgan Freeman says it is still on track – and David Fincher (Fight Club) still attached to direct. The problem, Freeman says, is “It?s a very intellectual science fiction film, a very difficult book to translate cinematically.? Although I thought that Freeman’s adaptation may have been aimed more at Rama II (or possibly a hybrid story) to shoot for a possible franchise-making story, he mentions specifically that he’d be the captain of the Endeavor, which was the ship specifically in the original book. Doesn’t mean they won’t hybridize the story later, but for those that haven’t read all the books the three later books (written with Gentry Lee) form a more cohesive trilogy, where the first book (written by Clarke alone) really is a standalone story.

Spawn creator Todd McFarlane and screenwriter Josh Olson (Masters of Science Fiction “The Discarded”) have had an idea to revisit the land of Oz – now Warner Brothers is making it possible. WB has purchased the rights to all 15 of the Oz books (14 by L. Frank Baum, and 1 by another author), stocking up for a possible franchise. McFarlane and Olsen have slightly different ideas on the tone of the movie – McFarlane wants a darker, PG-13 film, whereas Olsen is thinking PG.

As a followup to the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD debate, director Michael Bey said on his official blog that he may still do a Transformers sequel – after having previously said that he would because Paramount would only release Transformers in the HD-DVD format. Advice to Michael – don’t post after midnight.