The man responsible for navigating the way through remaking the popular classic is director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose). Derrickson, of course, fully understood the challenges of touching a film many consider to be at the top of the list when it comes to movies in the sci-fi genre. But he said he would not have gone forward with directing The Day the Earth Stood Still had there not been a compelling reason to do a remake.
Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm and Scott Derrickson Press Conference
Can you talk about taking a sacred text for science fiction buffs and making it for the 21st century?Scott Derrickson: "20th Century Fox wanted to do a remake and I was the first of the people here to sign onto doing it. When I was given the script I was a bit skeptical. I do love the original very much. It’s one of my two favorite Robert Wise films."
And the other is?
Scott Derrickson: "The Haunting. Picking two from his 40, I think, is even quite a thing. But for me it was really this, that in reading the screenplay - the screenplay certainly still needed work when I read it - but I was struck by the idea that updating this movie had tremendous value because of the original being so rooted in the social issues of its time. It was such an intelligent and interesting self-reflective commentary, coming from an American studio and an American filmmaker, on the Cold War and the fear of the atomic bomb and the struggle to establish the UN, and things that were controversial and divisive. I loved the idea of being able to tell basically the same story but bring in these new social issues that we have now, these new interesting messes that we’ve gotten ourselves into now in the world. And that alone seemed to have value to it and made sense."
"I think the other thing was it’s been 57 years since the first one. You’d better have a good reason to remake a classic film, but I do think that there’s something different about this film as opposed to other classics which are so much more known by the general movie-going audience. And I think there’s value to telling this story to the general movie-going population who, for the most part, won’t have seen the original and won’t know that story. My approach to it was that was the motivation and then the approach was to try to respect the original and also respect the fan base and the fact that it is a sacred movie to a lot of people."
Keanu Reeves: "I had the same question you had. And I then heard that answer and I went, 'Okay, and it would be fun to play an alien, and it’s a worthwhile story.' And that’s when I came onboard."
But he’s not fully alien?
Keanu Reeves: "That’s correct. That was part of the interesting side of the role was that it starts alien and becomes quite human."
Scott Derrickson: "It became an interesting conversation that Keanu and I had quite a bit during the making of the movie is to what degree is he human? You know, he says his body is human. Where does the body end and the mind begin, and vice versa? And we had to sort of work out at least an understanding for ourselves, where, how him becoming human was really occurring and that was part of what was fun and interesting about the process of that, working on that character."
What did you base your character on?
Keanu Reeves: "It really came to me through the obligations of the character in the story. It was in the script. That’s really where I worked from, the character has certain cues, when he’s born and the first time he starts to speak and he tries to drink a glass of water and says, 'This body is going to take some getting used to.' So it was just kind of the concept of the separation of his consciousness and his body. And what else? I just approached it like any other role. 'What does it want?'"
Jennifer, your character has a huge responsibility deciding whether we live or die on earth. Did you feel that?
Jennifer Connelly: "Well, yes, it felt like a huge responsibility but I was happy that it wasn’t just…I think it was really clever what Scott did. It's not just Helen. It’s not just on my shoulders in reality. I think that the relationship between Helen and Jacob [played by Jaden Smith] is employed in a different way than it is in the original film. It really functions as a little microcosm of human nature and how we are treating each other. They're sort of in conflict and there's a bit of a crisis and then there's a sort of reconciliation. They each take responsibility and there’s a move towards resolution and Klaatu observes this, so there is that dynamic. There’s also the Barnhart [played by John Cleese] scene and other encounters that he has that helped shape it, so that was a little bit of a relief - that it wasn't just me."
"I wanted people to be able to identify with her and I thought it was important that she herself be aware of the task and the enormity of that task and that position, so I liked that she has a moment with Barnhart where she says, 'What do I do? Tell me what to do?' She’s aware what the stakes are and what she’s found herself in. I liked about Patricia Neal’s character in the original that she is open-minded and she's a very strong, free thinking individual. I thought that was important to carry over, that bravery and thought as qualities, to be human without prejudice, without bias was really essential, that she be able to communicate, and that you feel the depths of her love. I thought those were all really important things."
