To be continued...

[Max Payne]

Bleh, the whole "secretly in production" thing that people often like to bring up is garbage.
They can't produce a game this massive when they have two other massive games in production for PS3.
A FFVII would require their full attention, unlike for example ACC, which they made whenever they had some spare time in-between their FFXIII working schedules.

Developers typically think about their next projects during production of another one. They probably already have written down some ideas and revisions of the old game's stuff, and doodle around with it when they have free time. That's probably ALL they've done so far on it.

The game is unlikely go into full production and development until at least one of their current next gen titles is done. But I wouldn't say they've done nothing for it by now. It would be pretty damn stupid to not have any idea of what they're going to do with the remake. Not when there's so much freaking money and general interest in the project, from both fans and the industry in itself.