The Day the Earth Stood Still — now filming

Keanu Reeves has been spotted in various locations around downtown Vancouver lately, and that can mean only one thing: The cameras have started rolling on Scott Derrickson‘s remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951; my comments).

I met someone at a party recently who works at one of the local film labs, and he tells me 20th Century Fox has moved into the office in a big way — something that almost never happens, or so he tells me — and he takes this to be a sign of just how big this particular production is.

Meanwhile, casting announcements continue to trickle out; the Hollywood Reporter revealed the other day that Jon Hamm, the Golden Globe-nominated star of Mad Men, is going to play “Dr. Granier, a NASA official who recruits Helen [the Jennifer Connelly character] for the scientific team investigating an alien’s arrival on Earth.”