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The studio reportedly forced the change to 'humans as batteries', which in my opinion is much worse (why not cows?). I have zero proof, but I think they were concerned about overlap with a famous series of sifi novels that I won't spoil by naming, but that is currently being produced by Bradley Cooper at Warner Brothers.
That may be a coincidence. That movie deal wasn't announced until 2009 - I'd be surprised if they'd had it cooking for 10+ years before saying anything about it.