The Oscars attempt (emphasis on the word, “attempt”) to recognize cinemas greatest achievements each year. The Razzies, on the other hand,  recognize cinema’s greatest underachievements each year.

After seeing the nominees for this year’s Razzie Awards, I’m beginning to think that the Razzie judges need to be given jobs on the Oscar selection committee. Maybe then the Oscar noms would be a little bit more spot-on.

Here are the 2008 Razzie Award nominees for your viewing displeasure.

WORST PICTURE

• Disaster Movie & Meet The Spartans (Two bad movies, one tired-ass concept)
• The Happening (Ouch, M. Night that’s gotta hurt!)
• The Hottie and The Nottie
• In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
• The Love Guru (Like no one saw that one coming.)

WORST ACTOR

• Larry The Cable Guy, Witless Protection
• Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave
• Mike Myers, The Love Guru
• Al Pacino, 88 Minutes & Righteous Kill (double ouch!)
• Mark Wahlberg, The Happening & Max Payne

WORST ACTRESS

• Jessica Alba, The Eye & The Love Guru
• The cast of The Women, (Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Meg Ryan)
• Cameron Diaz, What Happens In Vegas
• Paris Hilton, The Hottie and The Nottie
• Kate Hudson, Fools Gold & My Best Friend’s Girl

WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Uwe Boll, Uwe Boll’s Postal
• Pierce Brosnan, Mama Mia!
• Ben Kingsley, The Love Guru & The Wackness
• Burt Reynolds, Deal & In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
• Verne Troyer, The Love Guru & Uwe Boll’s Postal
  

WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Carmen Electra, Meet The Spartans & Disaster Movie
• Paris Hilton, Repo: The Genetic Opera
• Kim Kardashian, Disaster Movie
• Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
  
• Leelee Sobieski, 88 Minutes & In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale

WORST SCREEN COUPLE

• Uwe Boll and any actor, camera or screenplay
• Cameron Diaz & Ashton Kutcher, What Happens in Vegas
• Paris Hilton and either Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore, The Hottie and The Nottie
• Larry The Cable Guy & Jenny McCarthy, Witless Protection
  
• Eddie Murphy IN Eddie Murphy, Meet Dave
  

WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF OR SEQUEL

• The Day The Earth Blowed Up Real Good
• Disaster Movie & Meet The Spartans
• Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull
• Speed Racer
• Star Wars: Clone Wars

WORST DIRECTOR

• Uwe Boll, 1968: Tunnel Rats, In The Name of The King & Postal
• Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer, Meet The Spartans & Disaster Movie
• Tom Putnam, The Hottie and The Nottie
• Marco Schnabel, The Love Guru
• M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening
  

WORST SCREENPLAY

• Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer, Meet The Spartans & Disaster Movie
• M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening
• Heidi Ferrer, The Hottie and The Nottie
• Doug Taylor, In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
• Mike Myers & Graham Gordy, The Love Guru

WORST CAREER ACHIEVEMENT (SPECIAL CATEGORY)

• Uwe Boll (”Germany’s answer to Ed Wood”)

Personally I’m just happy that I didn’t see most of the movies on this list. The Happening caught me off guard, though; if I could get my time and money back for that one, I would. And poor Uwe Boll–The Razzies are really raking him over the coals, creating a special category just to highlight his failures.

On a side note, I’m glad to see that the debacle that was Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull is also getting the recognition it deserves: as a steaming pile of…well, you know.

Do the 2008 Razzie Award Nominations seem about right to you? Let us know.

Source: The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation Official Website

• Is ‘Rampage’ Uwe Boll’s First Good Movie?
• Will Sean Connery Return For Indy 5?
• Harrison Ford & Karen Allen Talk Indiana Jones 5
• Indiana Jones 5 To Hit Screens By 2011?
• Shia LaBeouf Says Indiana Jones 5 Is ‘Gearing Up’
• ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ Writer Tapped for Houdini Film

It’s Wednesday so it’s time for our weekly open discussion, but as it happens this one is hitting on the last day of 2008! Can you believe this year is over already?

And what an incredible year it’s been for movies… 2008 was a banner year for superhero movie fans with the likes of The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Hellboy 2, and yes – even Hancock and Punisher: War Zone.

Other great genre films included Rambo, Cloverfield (do you even remember that opened this year?!), Tropic Thunder, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Kung Fu Panda and more.

Of course we’ve had our share of not so hot movies this year like The Happening, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Meet Dave, Meet the Spartans, X-Files, etc. Then there those we were looking forward to that left some of us disappointed like Indy 4 and Quantum of Solace.

I think this would be a great place to post your comments regarding your faves and not so favorite movies of this year… Hits, misses, surprises – whatever floats your boat (within our usual guidelines of course).

All of us here at Screen Rant wish you a very Happy New Year and here’s hoping that 2009 turns out to be as great a year for movie fans as 2008 was!

• Open Discussion – August 12, 2009
• First Day Of Shooting On Iron Man 2
• District 9 Spoilers Discussion
• Quantum Of Solace Blu-ray Review
• David Duchovny Talks X-Files 3
• Daniel Craig Says Bond 23 To Start Shooting Late 2010

It’s Sunday and therefore it’s Weekend Movie News Wrap Up time.

This week:

Baz Luhrmann gets Gatsby; Brian Helgeland adds Salt; Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise believe that four times is a charm and Parmount Pictures finally get to know Jack!

Box Office

It was the battle of the A-Listers at the box office and against all odds Jim Carrey captured the top spot with Yes Man. A weekend take of $19 million should ensue. Will Smith had to vacate his usual number one position and settle for the runner-up place with Seven Pounds. The drama should make around $15 million this weekend. The Day The Earth Stood Still crashed and burned this weekend dropping a mighty 75% and grossing just $10 million. It looks like the Keanu Reeves film will have to make its coin back on DVD. Not good. You hear that Fox?

Four Christmases grossed another $8 million helping the “comedy” cross the magic $100 million mark. Ho Ho Ho! Gran Torino grossed $115,000 from 19 locations and the Mickey Rourke drama The Wrestler might make $200, 000 only four theatres. What a body slam!

Movie News

1. The Great Gatsby will return to the big screen under the direction of Australia helmer Baz Luhrmann. The film, which is based on the legendary novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the tale of Gatsby, a lonely millionaire and his long lost love Daisy Buchanan.

The book is a masterpiece and I’m quite fond of the 1970’s Robert Redford film, so I’m pretty interested to see how this turns out.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. Oscar winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland has been hired to polish Kurt Wimmer’s script for the Angelina Jolie action film Salt (formerly Edwin A. Salt).

Phillip Noyce will direct the film which Sony hopes will become a major franchise for the studio.

Source: Daily Script

3. Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise must have enjoyed working together on the forthcoming Valkyrie as the duo have three other projects on the boil. McQuarrie will co-write Flying Tigers which is:

” based on the volunteer fighter squadron formed to help the Chinese fight the Japanese before the U.S. entered World War II.”

According to Variety:

“McQuarrie also is writing and producing with Guillermo del Toro the previously announced United Artists project The Champions, penning the script with an eye toward hammering it into a Cruise vehicle. The British TV series transfer concerns a team of government agents rescued from a plane crash in the Himalayas by an advanced civilization and given superhuman abilities.”

McQuarrie is currently rewriting Jullian Fellows’ The Tourist, a spy thriller in which Cruise will star with Charlize Theron.

Source: Variety

4. It looks like Paramount Pictures will soon have a script for their Jack Ryan reboot. Hossein Amini will write the script for the film which has no title, no star, no director and until now no story (that we know of). At he very least it should get some talent interested.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

• Baz Luhrmann Looks To DiCaprio For ‘Great Gatsby’ Remake
• Tom Cruise Career Update: Getting His Scripts ‘Tom-Ready’
• Angelina Jolie in New Teaser Trailer as Agent Salt
• Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: November 1st, 2009
• Wolverine 2 Snags Oscar-Winning Writer
• Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: June 28, 2009

Screen Rant’s The Day the Earth Stood Still DVD contest is now closed, and here are the winners!:

• Eric Tomlinson -Morgantown, WV
  
• Tyler Hayes -Plymouth, MN
  

Congratulations and thanks to everyone for entering. There’s another contest RIGHT around the corner!

Didn’t we JUST close out a DVD giveway? Well, it’s time for another one! With the opening of the remake of the classic Science Fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves, we thought it would be appropriate to give away the original film. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth watching, and this 2-disc Special Edition DVD has tons of extra features to give you insight in to the making of the film.

A spaceship lands in Washington D.C., capturing the attention of the world. But the alien emissary it brings refuses to reveal his mission to any single government, leaving the military, the politicians, and millions of ordinary people to wait in fear. Soon their distrust turns to calls for violence. But one young woman and her son befriend him…and soon realize that they may be all that stands between the human race and total destruction.

Two lucky winners will receive:

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Special Edition DVD is presented in full screen format (1.33:1 aspect ratio) with English Mono, English 5.1 Dolby Surround, Spanish and French Mono, plus English and Spanish subtitles.  THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL Special Edition DVD includes the following bonus features:

New: Exclusive First Look At The New Movie The Day The Earth Stood Still Starring Keanu Reeves And Jennifer Connelly
• New & Exclusive To BD: Interactive Theremin: Create Your Own Score
• New & Exclusive To BD: Gort Command!: Interactive Game
• Commentary by Robert Wise and Nicholas Meyer
• New: Commentary by Film & Music Historians John Morgan, Steven Smith, William Stromberg and Nick Redman
• New: Isolated Score Track
• New: The Mysterious, Melodious Theremin
• New: The Day The Earth Stood Still Main Title Live Performance By Peter Pringle
• New: The Making of The Day the Earth Stood Still
• New: Decoding “Klaatu Barada Nikto”: Science Fiction as Metaphor Featurette
• New: A Brief History of Flying Saucers Featurette
• New: The Astounding Harry Bates Featurette
• New: Edmund North: The Man Who Made the Earth Stand Still Featurette
• New To Disc: Race To Oblivion: A Documentary Short Written And Produced By Edmund North
• New To Disc: Farewell To The Master: A Reading By Jamieson K. Price Of The Original Harry Bates Short Story; Audio Only
• New: Interactive Pressbook
• Fox Movietonews from 1951
• Original Theatrical Trailer & Teaser Trailer
• Advertising Gallery
• Behind-The Scenes Gallery
• Portrait Gallery
• Production Gallery
• Spaceship Construction Blueprints
• Shooting Script

• ‘12 Rounds’ DVD Giveaway – Winners!
• Fast & Furious DVD/Blu-ray Details
• ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ Hits Stores December 8th
• Win ‘Push’ & ‘Knowing’ on Blu-ray – Winners!
• Win CSI Season One On Blu-ray – Winners!
• Sin-City Blu-ray: Awesome New Clips Plus Disc Specs

Short version: If all you ask from a movie is cool CGI effects, The Day the Earth Stood Still is for you. Look for any more than that and you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Screen Rant reviews The Day the Earth Stood Still

You know, I can understand the desire to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still… I really can. The original film had a great concept, it’s stood the test of time, and the temptation to revisit it with today’s visual effects must have been overwhelming.

But one of the first rules of remakes is: You don’t remake classic films.

You don’t remake Gone With the Wind, you don’t remake Casablanca and you don’t even TRY to remake Citizen Kane. It’s a losing proposition – remakes that work are few and far between, and often they’re based on obscure or poorly made originals.

Now that I’ve got you thinking that my entire review will be based on comparing this new version to the original, let me tell you: This version doesn’t even work as a stand alone film. This could have been titled Alien Retribution and it still wouldn’t have been any good.

If you’re not familiar with the story, it basically goes like this: An alien spacecraft suddenly appears, an alien comes out to greet us (followed by very large protective robot), is mistakenly shot, questioned by the U.S. government, escapes, is befriended by a woman and her son, and it is revealed that (and here is where the plot diverts from the original) he is here to destroy mankind in order to save the Earth.

The film starts interestingly enough – with Keanu Reeves as a mountain explorer in 1928, apparently up in the Himalayas. He’s alone and there’s a pretty good snowstorm blowing, and he comes across an ice covered globe about 10 feet in diameter. He chips away at the ice, and something happens to him which forms the basis for how he (or someone who looks like him) returns to earth present day.

Present day, the always beautiful Jennifer Connelly plays college professor Helen Benson. She has a son, played by Jaden Smith, but I’ll get to him later. Federal agents soon appear and sweep her away with virtually no explanation to join a bunch of other similarly clueless scientists and engineers. Soon they are informed of the object heading towards Earth, apparently set to collide with a very prominent city and cause millions of deaths.

Of course it doesn’t crash but lands. It is a gigantic sphere that looks like it contains spinning liquids/gas. From it emerges a humanoid alien creature, who approaches Benson very slowly and carefully, extending its hand slowly in what is obviously a handshake. This is when he is shot by a nervous soldier (who, I assume, had never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and frankly, I found the shot completely contrived. At least in the original the alien (Klaatu) was holding a device which suddenly sprang open in the appearance of a weapon. Here it seemed as if the writer said “oh, here’s where the alien gets shot, let’s just get it done.”

A gigantic robot (Gort) emerges from the ship and commences to destroy all weapons within line of sight – he only stops when Klaatu orders him to (it was hard to make out but I believe this is where they inserted the famous line “Klaatu Barada Nikto”).

Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) is taken to a secure medical facility in order to try to help him, and there is actually some cool conceptual stuff going on here with the alien organism side of things. Soon he’s healed and is shakily adapting to his human body. Kathy Bates plays Secretary of Defense and is not wearing kid gloves in her approach to getting information out of the apparently human alien.

It becomes apparent that this Klaatu has powers over electricty and more, and he soon escapes with the help of Benson. She continues to believe he is here for the good of humanity and is determined to help him stay away from authorities long enough to get him in front of the United Nations to address the world. As it turns out he isn’t here to save humanity, he’s here to save the planet Earth from humanity.

The plan is to wipe human beings from the planet because “only a handful of planets in the universe can support complex life.” I literally laughed out loud when I heard that line – so in order to save a rare planet that can support complex life, his “federation” of aliens is going to wipe out the most complex life form on the planet?? What puts an exclamation point on the joke is when we’re shown tons of spheres all over the world collecting specimens of animal and insect life presumably to whisk them off the planet (just in case?). So snakes and squids are worth saving, but humans aren’t.

The best thing in this movie was watching Jennifer Connelly on screen – she was great in her role. John Cleese has a small and surprisingly serious cameo in the film which worked as well. Reeves was… well… Reeves. There wasn’t much he could do with the role as given, playing it very cold and unemotionally. Jaden Smith’s character however, annoyed the living heck out of me. He looks like he’s about nine years old and he played this incredibly snarky, back-talking character to his (as it turns out) step-mother, Helen. With every exchange between him and her I was torn between wanting to slap some parenting sense into her or some discipline into him. If they had cast a 14-16 year old I would have bought it, but a kid that young with that much lip? Not in my house.

Compound that with the fact that later on in the film we’re supposed to feel compassion for him when he finally “turns around.” He either wasn’t given the dialog to do it or just doesn’t have the acting chops to pull it off. That’s a major problem with the film – Outside of Benson, I didn’t really care about anyone or what might happen to them. I felt disconnected from the film and it just never really engaged me. For all the visual effects in the film, the overall feel of the film is fairly flat and boring.

Then there’s the whole “kill the humans to save the Earth” message – frankly I found that ludicrous. Here’s a supposedly highly evolved race that apparently has no problems with just murdering all of humanity. For what? Do they plan on populating Earth themselves? Replace us with “good” people who know how to take care of the planet?

I mean seriously, they should just be patient – if we’re that close to self-destruction just come back in a few thousand years. Does anyone really believe that humanity can actually pollute the planet to death? If anything the worry should be that we’ll make it uninhabitable for ourselves – give the Earth 10,000 years without us and it’ll be back to a lush paradise on its own.

There are other things as well, if Klaatu’s true alien appearance would be “frightening” (as he stated in the film), one would assume it is completly alien-looking – so why is Gort humanoid in appearance? Then there’s a “spy” who has been on Earth for 70 years, who Klaatu confers with before his final decision to destroy us. They guy tells him about how he’s come to love humanity, but we won’t change our ways. In view of how the film ends, this ends up making absolutely zero sense. There are also a couple of rather jarringly obvious product placements, and the ending is completely ambiguous.

In the original Klaatu left us with a warning… basically: “Get your act together and stop being so violent. We’ll be watching.” Here, Klaatu finally stops the destruction, but he just… leaves. How far will his message of why he came get? Will anyone hear it? Did he decide humanity is so noble that they don’t care what we do to the planet any more? Why didn’t he listen to the old guy he talked to earlier? Why didn’t the guy make a better case for humanity?

I swear I expected Al Gore to have a cameo in this film at some point. When Benson rescues Klaatu, my first thought when they got to her car was “good thing she doesn’t drive an SUV!” Despite this, the film never has the guts to go all the way and use the term “global warming” or say “you’re destroying the environment with your pollution.”

The Day the Earth Stood Still is all about the visual effects. They are cool, but I need more than that from a film in order to call it “good.” As a matter of fact, for all its spectacle, the film is pretty flat and boring.

So if you’re into seeing lots of cool CGI on the big screen – and plot and characters don’t mean that much to you, by all means, go check this out. On the other hand if those things DO matter to you, go rent the original and enjoy that instead.

• Comic-Con 2009: Alien Trespass Panel
• Alien Reboot On The Way
• ‘Let The Right One In’ Remake May Have Its Male Lead
• Alien Trespass Contest – Winners!
• ‘Cloverfield’ Director Talks ‘Let The Right One In’ Remake
• Avatar Featurette Shows Off Film’s Sci-Fi Tech

Come on folks, you know the drill! It’s the Mid Week Movie News Wrap Up.

This week:

Affleck goes to Arizona, Warner Bros, figure out Beetle The Bard; The Wolfman howls at a different time; Keanu Reeves has 47 Ronin and own a piece of Hollywood – cheap!

1. One time “Jack Ryan” and former tabloid fodder Ben Affleck is getting behind the camera once more following the stellar Gone Baby Gone.

Affleck will helm Arizona, the film details the death of an investigative reporter who died whilst covering the mob.

I’m damn happy that Affleck is regaining some of “the cred” that he lost during the JLO years. I think that he’s one of the last great leading men (in the traditional sense) and a growing filmmaker!

You go Benji!

Source: Variety

2. Love Harry Potter? Well I don’t, but if you do then you should be interested to know that Warner Bros. is very keen to figure out how the hell to turn J.K Rowling’s Beetle The Bard into a movie, or a series of movies.

The problem is that the studio has no idea how to develop these fairy tales into a feature (or features).

Answers please to Screen Rant (we will share the profits 50/50).

3. If, like me you are looking forward to The Wolfman then prepare to be disappointed. The horror remake has been moved again on he Universal release schedule.  The Benicio Del Torro film will now open on November 6 rather than in April 2009.

Probably to get the Halloween audience. Besides – who would open a horror movie in the spring. It’s kinda like opening Halloween in August. Do you here that Dimension?!

Source: Variety

4. The Day The Earth Fell Asleep …erm I mean Stood Still star Keanu Reeves has signed on to 47 Ronin. According to Variety the film is:

“an epic period film for Universal Pictures based on the true tale of a band of samurai swordsmen who avenged the death of their master in 18th century Japan.”

Wanted co-writer Chris Morgan is penning the script. I’m sure that there’s going to be enough Matrix homage/rip-off to make this worthwhile. Maybe.

Source: Variety

5. Love movies? Of course you do – you’re reading the best movie news website on the net. Well, check out this great auction news at Cinema Static. Own movie props that appeared in your favorite movies! The good news? Not all of them cost an arm and a leg.

Want to own Christian Bale’s Batman Cowl? Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber? What about Mighty Joe Young himself?

If you’re interested check out Cinema Static where you can discover that lots start at $200-$300!

Remember – it could be you!

Source: Cinema Static

That’s it for now. See you at the movies!

• Carl Rinsch To Direct ‘47 Ronin’
• Bloody Violent Red-Band Trailer For ‘The Collector’
• Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: July 18, 2009
• Al Pacino Prepares To Exercise His Napoleon Complex
• Movie News Wrap Up: March 30, 2009
• Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: September 6, 2009

Movie fans have a special love/hate relationship with sequels. We love it when sequels to our favorite movies go into production – but we are the first to point the finger when the studio gets it wrong.

Now it looks like 20^th Century Fox wants to pillage even more of their back-catalog and it appears that Speed may have zoomed into pole position on the studio’s list. Not only that – but Jack Traven, the character played by Keanu Reeves in the original is apparently in the scriptment that is making the rounds over at Fox.

So… will we really see another Speed film?

Or the more important question: “Does anybody really want to watch Speed 3?”

In 1994 two young actors named Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock starred in a film directed by a former cinematographer named Jan De Bont. That film was Speed and the film was the sleeper hit of the 1994 summer season. Three years later Speed 2: Cruise Control was released, and the film was an unmitigated disaster. Transplanting the action from a bus that couldn’t go under 50 miles per hour to a cruise ship in the Bahamas reeked on paper, and stank even more on the screen. The film was a huge financial disappointment grossing less than $50 million from a then HUGE $160 million budget.

When Keanu Reeves turned it down – you know that it had to be bad.

Will this thing ever be made or is the studio just spit-balling ideas?

Your guess is as good as mine. Reeves’ quality control may not be the best – but even he isn’t so hard up that he needs to revisit an old action franchise, especially one which he ditched after the first installment. Although a few years ago I would have said that about Bruce Willis returning to the Die Hard franchise (another Fox property).

Heck, even Vin Diesel is returning to The Fast and The Furious after a two movie sabbatical. So a precedent has already been set.

Also, Reeves is soon to be seen in The Day The Earth Stood Still, and guess what? The film is a Fox release. So there may be something to this more than gossip.

There’s no word on Sandra Bullock returning, but while Reeves may be on board, I can’t see Sandra Bullock returning – she’s gone on to do “serious” films and I’d be surprised if she returned to this genre. One person who will not be returning for sure is helmer Jan De Bont. According to a scooper for Cinema Blend:

“Jan won’t touch it with a five foot pole though – they offered it to him a while ago.”

Do we still feel the need for Speed?

My guess is no, but as I always say in these situations – money talks!

Heck, the rumor could have been started by a crazy Keanu Reeves fan, or even by a screenwriter who has written a script on spec.

We shall find out soon enough, and when we do I’ll let you know.

Sources: Aintitcool and Cinemablend

• Willis Ready For A Fifth ‘Die Hard’ – Are You?
• Abrams Snags Writers for Mission: Impossible 4
• xXx 3 Gets a New Director
• Fast & Furious DVD/Blu-ray Details
• Three New ‘Surrogates’ Clips
• Bruce Willis Is Still A Man Of Action

This week, Fox released yet another trailer for next month’s The Day the Earth Stood Still remake (is it already only a month away?). It feels like I’ve seen the entire movie now and this newest trailer seems to spoil some of it for me. In this one we see much more of Gort and we finally see Klaatu (Keanu Reeve’s character) hanging out with Helen (Jennifer Connelly).

The last trailer from just two weeks ago was a lengthy five minutes and revealed Gort in full form for the first time – and the month before that we got a huge seven minute preview that aired with the Fringe pilot.

I really dug the very first trailer for this film, as it was mysterious and cryptic – but since then I’ve not been impressed with the follow-up promotional material. I get the feeling that Fox is heavily marketing this to force a good opening weekend as it will drop huge once word-of-mouth gets out about it.

This movie, along with The Spirit (which also had a new trailer this week) are being over-marketed in my opinion and I believe it’s because the studios know they aren’t great.

Even worse, the studios timed the release of these two trailers with the new Watchmen and Star Trek trailers that are debuting with Quantum of Solace this weekend – not a good idea.

Here’s the trailer:

[See post to watch Flash video]

Also, we have the brand new poster for the film courtesy of Movies Online. The poster looks pretty cool to me with an Independence Day vibe but I still am not digging the giant sphere thing. I guess if they used UFOs instead it would be complete ripoff of Independence Day but with the title of a classic film.

I’m not sure what to expect from this film but I have a feeling that it will get poor reviews – yet I’m still going to see it, heh.

What do you think of the trailer? What do you expect of the film?

The Day the Earth Stood Still opens on December 12th.

Source: FilmoFilia

• New ‘Up’ Trailer Reveals More Story Details
• Roland Emmerich Talks Independence Day Sequel(s)
• New Intimidating District 9 Poster
• New Star Trek Trailer Is Freaking Awesome
• Six New Photos from James Cameron’s Avatar
• Star Trek Rocks The Box Office

Here we have yet another trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Screen Rant has quite a history for this up coming sci-fi remake of the 1951 classic of the same name so check out our previous posts on this film if you’re interested.

If you want to see the earlier trailers before watching this new one, check out the very first trailer which I really dug. You’ll see alot of repeat scenes but each trailer shows off some new footage. Next, from one of the first articles I wrote here, we have a full 7-minute preview which debuted mid-September alongside the encore broadcast of the Fringe premiere. That second video completely changed my mind and expectations on the film from good to bad.

Now, we are presented with yet another long trailer: 5 minutes long to be exact. The verdict?

Meh.

It is a huge improvement on the 7 minute preview but I’m getting a very strong feeling that 20th Century Fox thinks their own film is not good and are trying hard to over-market it.

Before I go on, watch for yourself:

This trailer has many of the cryptic and dark tones of the first trailer which I love, but much of the negative from the second as well. The one huge positive is finally seeing Gort in full-form doing his thing. His design pays homage to the original Gort but the CGI on him I think looks awful.

There are too many negatives going for me on this one, from the giant spheres and lights which I think look stupid and the way many of the scenes are set up. For example, the soldiers and hazmat-suited folk approaching the mysterious object and how they’re all widely separated for dramatic effect.

And then there’s the cast. We have Keanu as the lead role which speaks for itself, however in this case he obviously fits just by being himself (is that a positive or negative?). Then we have Kathy Bates and John Cleese which I can’t comprehend at all as to why they were cast. Seeing Bates in the trailer completely takes me out and I can’t imagine how I’m going to feel seeing Cleese on screen attempting to be serious. It all feels like a parody to me.

Also, the story of this film which we’ve discussed in full in previous threads is not a positive for me either. All in all, I do still have some interest in this flick but I am almost certain it will not be that great.

What do you think of the trailer? What’s your feeling about the movie based on what you’ve seen?

The Day the Earth Stood Still opens on December 12, 2008.

• Brand New Transformers 2 Footage
• Japanese Avatar Trailer & New TV Spot
• Amazing Teaser Trailer For [REC] 2
• ‘S. Darko’ Trailer = Awful
• New Poster & Trailer For Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2
• Full Trailer For The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

On Sunday night, prior to the encore broadcast of the Fringe premiere, Fox debuted this extended 7-minute preview for The Day the Earth Stood Still. This trailer extends and completes some of the scenes shown in the first trailer.

Upon seeing the first theatrical trailer previewed before Hancock in early July, I was very excited. The trailer felt very dark and cryptic, while being realistic as to what would actually happen in that situation.

Unfortunately, this feeling was mostly shot down for me with this new extended preview.

Judge for yourself:

[See post to watch Flash video]

The new scenes, specifically the ones focusing on destruction or the emerging giant spheres (marbles?) do not really work for me. I think these images also hurt the film’s appeal and make it almost “too sci-fi”, if that makes sense. It felt to me a lot like the bad parts of War of the Worlds, another remake of a classic science fiction film.

In earlier posts about this movie here on Screen Rant, Vic made it very clear how he feels about the remake and the “global warming” (oh, sorry, climate change) message of this film. Screen Rant also received a nice little letter from (everybody’s favorite) Fox Studios about another article we posted which commented on a review of the script from Aint It Cool News. That review, if true, makes the movie sound pretty bad.

Seeing this new preview in combination to what I’ve been reading about the story, I am not happy about this remake either. I wish they didn’t use the original name – they do not need to as it has nothing to do with this film. Using the original name will not make this movie sell more, it’s the actors and trailers that make it sell. All this does is tarnish the original name with something that is irrelevent to the original plot and idea.

Clearly, I am not sold yet on this film. What did you think of this extended trailer? Will you see this on the big screen?

The Day the Earth Stood Still opens on December 12, 2008.

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This post will be updated continuously during the panel.

For the Fox panel Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connolly and director Scott Derrickson are on hand to talk about The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Derrickson directed the most excellent Emily Rose. He touched on the concerns over remaking a classic film and how much he enjoys and respects the original. He thinks it’s a good idea to revisit the concept using modern day issues.

They will be showing a few clips.

The scene was an extended version of the interrogation shown in the trailer. This version of Klaatu is not docile and non-violent – in the scene he takes over the interrogator, delivering an electrical shock and controls his mind in order to get info so he can escape.

Keanu stated that his take on the role was to be an objective observer as the alien.

Derrickson says that the alien technology is biological and he didn’t want spacecraft shooting lasers.

Jennifer talked about the human elements of the story and how we treat each other and the planet.

Another clip shown which shows the boy, Bobby and Klaatu having a conversation in the back of a pickup truck.

Keanu talked about how his opinion of humanity evolves during the film to where he starts to think that maybe we’re not so bad.

(Side note: The only reason that I’m starting to think there might be a glimmer of hope for this film is that I like the director and his work on Emily Rose.)

Derrickson talked about the design of Gort and that they went through hundreds of different drawings in trying to figure out how to update the robot for the film and they ended up coming back to a design similar to the original. Weta Workshop is working on the design of the character.

The spaceship and the spacesuit have an organic / biological basis.

Biggest clip to follow, several minutes of footage.

Clip showed a lot of destruction by Klaatu’s ship(s) and I still don’t like that take on the film. The clip also showed the scene with the idiotic line where the survival of the planet is more important than humanity.

Next a scene from Max Payne that was pretty cool was shown highlight Payne getting his butt kicked before the shoots whoever is kicking his butt in an inventive way.

John Moore director, Mila Kunis, Mark Whalberg and Chris Bridges were in attendance.

The director said the challenge in making the film was “to not screw it up.” He said the game has a great story and the goal is to translate that story to a great movie.

Wahlberg saw the script before he saw the game. He was quite charming and said he was ready to do another film where he could “kick some ass again.”

Joked about how his arrest record made him a good fit for the role.

The character starts out happy with a wife and child that are taken away from him.

Another clip, highlighting the bad-assness of Wahlberg taking on a group of street punks. Forget what I said previously about concerns Wahlberg could pull this off after seeing him in The Happening. I got a modern Death Wish vibe from the clip.

They talked about a new slow motion camera system that they used, inspired by The Matrix and John Woo.

Finished up with a long clip that should a lot of action sequences from the film. Really, parts of reminded me of the first Die Hard movie – and that’s a good thing. Of course there was much more beyond that with gunfire out the wazoo, and lots of cool imagery.

Wolverine

Hugh Jackman came out and the crowd went insane. He was very gracious and said he’d be waiting a long time to bring Wolverine to Comic-Con since he didn’t have the opportunity with any of the X-Men movies. He thanked the crowd profusely saying he wouldn’t have a career if it wasn’t for us, and also came in to the audience to thank Len Wein, the creator of the character. Jackman had

He said the’ve finished filming, the film is big, action-packed and “bad-ass.”

There will be a lot of berserker rage in the film.

They showed an extended trailer for the film which I have to say was pretty damned awesome and the crowd went nuts. Gambit and Deadpool are in the film, shows Wolverine as a soldier with a bad attitude, Stryker recruiting him and Sabretooth to work for the government, we see Blob, lots of mutant action, big set pieces with explosions and all kinds of cool crazy stuff. The buzz on this has been that it’s not going to be good but you certainly couldn’t tell that from the trailer that was shown.

And that’s it for the Fox presentation!

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Dark Horizons scored some hi-res posters from Comic-Con for Max Payne and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Based on the Max Payne trailer, it’s too soon to draw any conclusions on whether the film will be good or not, although after his performance in The Happening, I’m not exactly excited to see Mark Whalberg in a leading role again.

As far as the Keanu-starring TDTESS remake, the panel for his film will be starting in an hour. At this point I’m still looking at it with a heavily skeptical eye and my gut reaction is that I think it’s going to be awful. But at least the posters are cool, with one giving us a definite look at the robot Gort.

The Max Payne posters are both extremely cool looking as well. You can click on the images to see bigger versions at Dark Horizons.

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Ok, ok, fine.

Here’s the first trailer to the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves.

If you don’t know, this version puts a Greenpeace spin on the classic film from 1951. Here’s a quote from the trailer:

“If you die, Earth survives.”

Within the context of the film, I presume Keanu/Klaatu means mankind and not Jennifer Connely, to whom he is saying the line. So there ya go – in the big picture, the Earth is more important than the survival of mankind.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Looks to me like it rips a lot from Close Encounters of the First Kind, but what do I know?

The Day the Earth Stood Still is scheduled to open December 2008.

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I’m not putting up the poster for Fox Studios’ The Day The Earth Stood Still for two reasons:

1. They might decide to threaten me with lawyers for some retarded reason, like they did after my previous post about the movie.

2. I think this film will be such a monstrous suck-fest that there is a danger it will act as a black hole and destroy the Earth. Ironic considering its “green” message.

If you’re interested anyway, click here.

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UPDATE 2: Despite the email below from Fox, I cannot see how commenting on a review of a script and mentioning items from that review without directly quoting a screenplay is a copyright violation. Therefore I’m putting my article back online.

UPDATE 1: I’ve been contacted by Fox Studios’ legal department with the following email:

“To Whom It May Concern:

We have recently learned that SCREENRANT.com (hereinafter “You” or “Your”) posted a review purportedly from the Twentieth Century Fox feature film screenplay titled “The Day The Earth Stood Still” on your website at [this page]. Your review contains elements protected by copyright and, as such, we must request that you remove the review from the website and cease and desist from all other activities associated with this material.”

Now personally, I don’t know how commenting here on a review of a script on another website entails copyright infringement, but I’m also not going to get in a legal battle with a studio. At the time I’m writing this, the review is still up at Aintitcool.com at the link at the end of this post.

A couple of weeks ago I commented on how my expectations for the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still couldn’t get any worse. Well it turns out I was wrong: it’s even worse than I thought.

Over at Ain’t It Cool News they seem to have a new contributor and apparently he’s gotten his hands on a copy of the script for the unnecessary remake.

IF this report is accurate man oh man oh MAN does it sound awful.

According to the report (and there are BIG spoilers below, so be warned!):

- There is no “Gort” in the movie, instead there’s a robot that walks on all fours called “Totem.” [Correction: There IS Gort in the movie and he is humanoid in appearance.]

- Klatuu is not the first visitor here from his planet. There’s already been an old man here for 80 years monitoring us.(Logic problems galore with this one, pointed out at AICN.)

- They destroyed their planet through global warming and pollution so have come here to destroy us before we do that to other worlds.

- The source states that the famous phrase “Klatuu Barada Nicto” is never uttered.

- No scenes between Bobby and Klaatu at the Lincoln Memorial, the Arlington Cemetery, and the visit to the space ship. This actually makes sense, in a bad way, considering the theme of the movie. Perhaps they could visit coal mines or Ed Begley Jr’s home?

I’ve only scratched the surface with those points.

Having said all of the above, a couple of things bug me about the report:

1. The guy gets bent out of shape at the Connolly character being a single mom: the character in the first film was a single mom as well.

2. He adamantly states that the famous quote will not be used in the movie, while in the recent interview with MTV, Keanu Reeves stated that it was uttered in the movie. I mentioned this in my previous post about the film.

End of removed section per request of 20th Century Fox.

If the report is accurate, like I said, this thing is going to be even worse than I thought. If it’s not, I still think environmentalism is still a cheesy concept for a remake of this classic film.

Click on over to AICN for the whole thing and then come back here for a civilized conversation about this.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is scheduled to open December 2008.

Source: AintItCool.com

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I know I haven’t posted much lately (thanks to my hearty band of writers!) but I just HAD to chime in on this one.

I don’t know how familiar you are with the original (and classic) version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, but it was borne out of fears of the Atomic Age and the initial stirrings of the Cold War. Today it may seem quaint and dated but at the time it was a very relevant theme to be tackled from a sci-fi angle.

Over at MTV.com they’ve quoted Keanu Reeves in an interview and while he admits that yes, there is a huge threat posed by the staggering number of international conflicts…

“The version [of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'] I was just working on, instead of being man against man, it’s more about man against nature. My Klaatu says that if the Earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives. I’m a friend to the earth.”

Ok, all together now: Awwwwwwwwwww…..

Are they kidding? Jeez, this thing should have come out as a triple-feature with those other sci-fi fantasies The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a little late now that more and more actual statistically valid science is being allowed to surface that refutes the whole “Global Warming” thing. Of course those who stand to profit are quick on their feet and have replaced that overused term with the less confrontational “Climate Change.”

Anyway, with all the conflict and outright genocide going on in the world today, an alien is going to come from outer space and try to get us to buy carbon credits?

I’m sorry but any chance this movie had of being a meaningful remake of the original just went out the window for this writer.

At least they’re keeping the classic line “Klaatu barada nikto.”

If you want to read a really great book about the so-called environmental crisis, I recommend you read Michael Crichton’s most excellent State of Fear.

The Day the Earth Stood Still will be released December 2008.

Source: MTV

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If you’re a regular reader of Screen Rant you know what a huge fan I am of remakes (not). A while back it was announced that a remake of the classic Sci Fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still was being planned. Today we have further details from Variety, among them the announcement of the lead actor who will be playing the lone alien Klaatu who came to Earth to evaluate humanity:

Keanu Reeves.

There seems to be a collective scream of “Noooooooo!” on movie sites regarding casting Reeves as the somber alien in this movie, but I actually think he may not be a bad choice. Keanu has always had kind of an otherworldly vibe about him and if he can dial it down he could pull this off. He’s certainly played somber characters before.

Now this doesn’t mean I’m in favor of a remake of the classic film, which was released in 1951 and directed by Robert Wise. The original was a commentary on the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia and no doubt this one will be about the war on terrorism.

According to Variety it’s being called a “re-imagining” instead of a remake, no doubt due to the stigma associated with the latter.

No doubt the character driven, cerebral tone of the original will go by the wayside, giving way to incredible special effects, a heavy-handed “message” and the fact that they’ll no doubt work in battle sequences that were nowhere to be seen in the original.

Production is set to begin either late this year or early 2008.

Source: Variety

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