Is The Day the Earth Stood Still now going to look like The Day After Tomorrow?

Rumour has it the big-budget remake of the 1951 science-fiction classic -- about an extraterrestrial who comes to Earth to tell humanity that we'll be destroyed if we don't rid ourselves of atomic weapons -- will now warn of the dire consequences of global warming rather than those of a Cold War-sparked nuclear holocaust.

"It's a reinvention," says Keanu Reeves, who stars as Klaatu, the humanoid alien who visits our planet alongside a giant robotic bodyguard.

Reeves didn't confirm the 2008 version's green theme, but did add, "It's kind of an extension of the original but appropriated to our time, just as that film was."

Reeves just wrapped his role in the film, which continues to shoot in Vancouver. The cast includes Jennifer Connelly, John Cleese, Kathy Bates and Jon Hamm from TV's Mad Men.

This new Day is scheduled to dawn in December.

GOOD, BAD AND UGLY: Budding rom-com superstar Katherine Heigl will follow up back-to-back hits 27 Dresses and Knocked Up with The Ugly Truth opposite 300's Gerard Butler.

"This is an R-rated battle of the sexes," says director Robert Luketic, who just helmed the gambling drama 21 but cut his teeth on Legally Blonde and Monster-in-Law. "It's a very frank and honest look at what men are really looking for in a woman and what women are really looking for in a man. We have all these pretenses and bulls----ing games. It's very European in its frankness and its fun. He's what some women might call a pig. And she's what some men might call really uptight."

Filming gets underway next week.

FLAME OUT? Clobbering time appears to be over. Chris Evans, who played Johnny Storm a.k.a. the Human Torch in 2005's Fantastic Four and its 2007 sequel, says a third instalment may be even too much of a stretch for Mr. Fantastic.

"I think if there was going to be a third, we would have heard about it by now. I tend to think with those things, as soon as the movie comes out, they're working on a script and I still haven't heard anything. So I think that chapter's been closed."

This is somewhat surprising given that -- while not as successful critically or commercially as the X-Men or Spider-Man franchises -- the relatively inexpensive Fantastic Four movies did manage to turn tidy profits for Fox.

"It made money," Evans says. "I thought it was a cash cow. But I'm not chomping at the bit to jump back in the tights."

FROM MOBSTER TO MAYOR: James Gandolfini, last seen just prior to those irritating seconds of dead air on The Sopranos finale, has been cast as the Mayor of New York City in director Tony Scott's The Taking of Pelham 123.

It's a crime thriller pitting transit cop Denzel Washington against subway car hijacker John Travolta.

According to Variety, Gandolfini is also set to star as Ernest Hemingway in a drama to be directed by Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff).