Classic SF film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is getting remade, and, um, at least it's not starring Tom Cruise. Variety reports that Keanu Reeves has signed to star in the Twentieth Century Fox remake of the classic 1951 film.  (Some people just became happy finding out there is going to be a remake.  Many others are getting that same feeling as when a puppy gets set on fire.)  The original film starred Michael Rennie as a (mostly) peaceful alien with his faithful robot companion Gort (Lock Martin). They came to Earth, Klaatu had a thing with a human woman named Helen (Patricia Neal), amid a world gonne madde or at least amid a nice Cold War parable.  The phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" became a common in-joke among SF geeks, and was even parodied later in "Army of Darkness."  The film's themes will be updated to something more modern.  David Scarpa wrote the script, which puts it to an early 2008 production start.

Keanu Reeves has starred in "The Matrix" trilogy, "Constantine," and many other films, and according to a source close to the Wachowski brothers, he is a very nice person.