Jennifer Connelly has joined the cast of The Day the Earth Stood Still. In case you haven’t been following the bouncing CB ball on this one, yes, it’s being remade.
The remake comes courtesy of the soulless folks at 20th Century Fox, who have piled money at the feet of Keanu Reeves to star in the ruination of yet another classic. Scott Derrickson, who showed promise helming The Exorcism of Emily Rose will now toss that promise aside in favor of simply redoing someone else’s movie.
Variety says that along with the luscious but increasingly underweight Connelly, Kathy Bates is in negotiations to join the cast. Jen is set to play the role of Helen Benson, a part played by Patricia Neal in the original 1951 classic. Kathy Bates is set to play an overweight old woman… we presume. Or maybe they’ll combine Bates and Connelly into a single person, thus creating an actress of perfectly proportioned body type.
Since you’re reading this site, I’m going to go ahead and assume you are a smart person who has seen the original, seminal sci-fi film they’re redoing here. You remember it. Think a minute. An alien lands on Earth with his giant robot and tries to warn humans to live in peace lest they be destroyed. As you can imagine, being the warlike creatures we are, that message doesn’t go over well. The movie however did, and it’s now pretty much regarded as the science fiction film of the era.
I’m sure the new version will have a fancy CGI robot and will mix in a lot of modernized relevance to update the movie to our era, but I’d rather pick up the black and white version than sit through the work of yet another filmmaker incapable of coming up with his own ideas. If Steven Spielberg couldn’t make a better War of the Worlds, what hope is there for the likes of Scott Derrickson?
