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BY DAVID SERVER |
Hey guys! Typhon24 here, reporting from the just recently finished San Diego
Comicon. I caught some pretty groovy stuff this weekend, and I thought I'd
give my general impressions of what was shown film-wise from this year's
Con. Overall, I was pretty darned impressed. I'll try and cover the stuff
I saw that really stuck out to me (for better or for worse), although I may skip
things like the Paramount or Kevin Smith panels because they were really only
Q&A sessions with no footage or anything like that -- I liked them,
but there's not much to report: Angelina Jolie is hot, Kevin Smith is funny -- consider
yourself all caught up. But anyways, I'll try and hit the highlights, relevant
Q&A info, and freebies, and sum it up with a grade. Let's dive right
in, shall we?
THE PUNISHER: Technically, Artisan didn't have
any actual 'presentation' to speak of for their upcoming
Punisher film since they're busy filming in Florida, but they did
have a booth, and being CountingDown's resident 'comic-book-guy',
I had to check it out. Started strong -- they had a *huge* foam-core
cutout of the skull logo which stretched the entire height of the convention
center. Most of the booth's space was mysteriously hidden behind
a black curtain. The table outside the curtained area sported a table
with some free promotional t-shirts, pins, and postcards, all featuring
the Punisher logo and nothing we hadn't seen before. There was
also a prop tombstone for Frank Castle, which was a sort of nice touch.
But what lay behind the curtain? New footage from the film? New promotional
imagery? Maybe even a new poster! So I went in. I found a small flat-screen
playing the teaser, the old teaser we've all seen in theaters,
in repeat. Nice job, Artisan -- you guys really pulled out all the
stops, huh? And yeah, that was sarcastic.
Freebies: T-Shirts, Promo Cards, Promo Pins
Grade: D+
TRAILER PARK: The trailer park this year was generally
really lame. The first 45 minutes or so were taken up by trailers that
have already been in theaters for months. Fox provided the only new material
as far as I could tell, the first of which was a sneak peek behind the
scenes of 'I, Robot', with a nice little video intro by Will
Smith. This was actually pretty cool! Smith was very funny in his small
piece, regretting he could not be at the con in person, but pointing
out that they were paying him more to stay and shoot the movie than leave
and promote it. "This is the best movie ever," Smith promised, "so
don't bother thinking about other movies because this is it." The
clips shown were of an on-set/behind-the-scenes type nature. We got quick
glimpses of Smith brandishing a pink gun (maybe this had something to
do with unfinished effects?), multiple officers firing their weapons
in some kind of futuristic office, a very quick shot of an impressive
animatronic articulated robot arm, and it culminated with the logo, which
is green and made to look like a computer chip. Nothing extraordinary,
but a good effort since they clearly had nothing finished to show. Fox
also provided a trailer for the upcoming re-release director's
cut of the original 'Alien'. Neat, but nothing really 'new' to
speak of.
No freebies or Q&A here, so we'll skip the grade on this section.
Would be nice to have more actual new content next year, though.
WARNER BROTHERS: A lot of the WB panel consisted of
a series of quick 'video-apologies' from casts that couldn't
make it out to Comicon. The first was Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson from
the set of 'Starsky and Hutch'. After apologizing for not
showing up ("The convention center is, what, all the way across
town?"), they returned to the set to shoot "a difficult scene" with
a flock of cheerleaders. Next up was an apology from the 'Scooby
Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed' cast. Nothing special shown here, as
they simply addressed the audience briefly and that was it...same
four cast members, same costumes...hopefully not the same mistakes,
but obviously there's no way to tell about that from what was shown.
There was then a quick little action-oriented reel of behind-the-scenes
stuff for 'Troy'. I wasn't all that excited for this
flick, but this looked pretty cool. Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, and the bajillion
armed extras seemed appropriately angry and battle-ready, and it all
ended with the Trojan Horse being dragged in. Looks like it could be
a keeper. Up next an exceedingly and hilariously awkward mini-promo for
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Akzaban, which consisted of star Daniel
Radcliffe and new director Alfonso Cuaron discussing what could be expected
in the film. No footage, no new info...and on a side note, they both
seemed really nervous. It was weird, but I don't think Potter fans
should be worried, just rest easy knowing you didn't miss anything
if you couldn't make it to the con. We were then treated to two
new Looney Tunes pieces, one a short film and the other a sneak peek
at some footage from the upcoming movie 'Looney Tunes: Back in
Action.' The short film is supposedly one of many that will usher
back the days when 'Looney' toons ran before Warner Brothers
flicks, and after seeing this one, I say more power to 'em. The
short, entitled 'Museum Scream', is a classic Sylvester vs.
Tweety battle in a museum. And it was actually really funny! As violent
and over-the-top slapsticky as you could hope for in a Warner Brothers
short. The footage from the movie, however, left a bit to be desired.
While the animation (at least the parts that were finished) looked pretty
strong, the jokes rarely connected, and I was left a little less than
impressed, although there were a few 'modernization' jokes,
like integrating the internet ('Acme.com' anyone?) into the
Tune-iverse, that were pretty sharp. Overall, however, I'm still
not convinced. We were then treated to a trailer for the Motorcycle action
romp 'Torque', as introduced by three of the film's
gorgeous stars, among them Jamie Pressley. The film looks goofy as all
get-out, but in a sort of guilty pleasure/McG way. Not much else to say -- could
be amusing. Next we got some behind the scenes footage for Halle Berry's
upcoming horror-thriller 'Gothika', as well as a brief Q&A
with Berry herself. The footage looked pretty drab to me, with a lot
of shots of Berry running and climbing fences and looking scared, but
I'll wait for a trailer before I make a final decision. Last but
obviously not least, the trailer for 'The Matrix Revolutions'.
Cooooool. About half old, half new footage. A lot of the great new stuff
was CG from' the war' that we've all been waiting for,
which really reminded me of the scope of this last entry. I was really
stoked to see the people in the 'guard-mechs' getting some
action. Nothing new could be figured about the story, but I was excited
for Revolutions before, and now I'm even more so. Plus I heard
there's gonna be a 'Hellboy' trailer attached -- my
Achilles' heel. Wait, didn't I already cover 'Troy'?
Nyuck nyuck...
Freebies: A Starsky and Hutch car-shaped car ornament, a metal Scooby
2 dog-bone key chain, a Harry Potter Gryffindor patch, a Looney Tunes
Back in Action magnet, a Torque bottle opener, and a Gothika t-shirt.
Grade: B-
UNDERWORLD: The Sony panel kicked off with the new 'Underworld' trailer,
which was impressive! Once again, the trailer contained about half new
and half old footage. But the new stuff was a nice balance of plot exposition
and finished effects work. The werewolves, which I was initially very
concerned about, looked great -- sleek and deadly and all the stuff
you would want from a werewolf. The fight scenes look strong, very Matrix-meets-Blade.
And star Kate Beckinsale looks all kinds of awesome in this thing...a
bad-ass with a good-ass. Where do I sign? The trailer was then followed
by a first look at the new theatrical poster, with an armed Beckinsale
standing under a gothic stone archway with the moon in the background,
and the faint shadow of a werewolf. This was followed up with a panel
with Beckinsale, male lead Scott Speedman, director Len Wiseman, and
some of the creative muscle behind the film. Nothing really all that
interesting to report, but long story short, the film looks pretty sweet.
Freebies: A metal 'Underworld' throwing star medallion.
Grade: B
HELLBOY: This movie is my main focus on the site these
days, so clearly I'm a bit in biased territory, but what can I
say -- I think it looks great! I've been pretty keen on the
ad campaign so far, I've dug the posters and the released images,
all looked super-swell on set in Prague, and what I saw at the con certainly
didn't place any doubt in my mind. While the Prague team was unable
to get a trailer together in time for the con (damn!), they did have
a nice 'sizzle reel' for us. Basically, it was a spruced up version of
the footage that Harry screen-capped over on Aint It Cool News. Cool
stuff. Some of the shots that stood out to me as a Hellboy fan included
the following: 1.) Psychic merman Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) underwater,
swimming in a dense and gross murky greenish liquid, very fish-like.
Doug Jones is doing us Abe fans proud, folks. 2.) Gas-masked nazi occultist
Karl Ruprect Kroenen fighting multiple opponents in a skintight black
bodysuit with swiveling night-stick style blades on his forearms - totally
awesome. Mignola later mentioned to me that while in the 1944 flashback
sequences, Kroenen is basically a direct translation of his comic book
counterpart, after that scene he becomes 'very much a del Toro character'
(in reference to Blade II director Guillermo del Toro) who he's very
fond of. 3.) Hellboy (Ron Perlman), writing a letter to someone on a
pad of paper, asks Agent Meyers (Rupert Evans), "What's a solid,
strong word for 'need'?", and when Meyers tells him that he thinks
'need' itself is a good word, Hellboy responds, "Nah...too needy." Heh.
4.) The demonic monster Sammael in general. This beasty looks to deliver
in a big way. Very goopy, tentacle-y, and grisly looking, he works even
better on film than he did on set in Prague. He also looks really groovy
on the free promo poster. 5.) The Corpse. He was in quite a few shots
from the footage we saw, and he really does look like a Mignola shot
come to life. Eerie. 6.) Professor Broom (John Hurt) and Liz (Selma Blair)
looked great. Liz looked very much like her comic counterpart, and I
know we all expect John Hurt to do a great job with his role, which this
footage entirely supported. "There are things that go bump in the
night, Agent Meyers...we are the ones that bump back." Sweeeeet
line. 7.) Ron Perlman obviously looks and sounds dead-on as Hellboy in
all of the footage, but there was one specific shot of HB in the shadows
lifting weights and smoking...very memorable shot. Oh, plus when Hellboy
punched an oncoming car and it flipped over him...that was pretty
damned awesome. And according to Mignola, they didn't even show us 'the
good stuff' yet. Nice. Anyways, the footage was followed up by a panel
with Mignola himself. He seemed very confident in the direction being
provided by Guillermo del Toro, and assured eager fans that we would
see two classic Hellboy moments in the film -- Hellboy ripping off
his horns, and Hellboy eating pancakes. I talked to Mignola a few times
myself over the course of the con at his booth -- he really did
seem excited about what he had seen in his recent trip to Prague. He
mentioned that Hellboy's classic one-liners, "Son of a...",
and it was done. So rest easy on this one guys, I think this movie's
gonna blow us all away in May. Letting Mignola speak was a nice touch,
good to see the creator is backing the project so genuinely.
Freebies: 5 character trading cards and 2 mini-posters.
Grade: A-
SPIDER-MAN II: This panel started on a down note, but
ultimately came forward as one of, if not *the*, strongest movie presentations
at Comicon. But first, the "bad news", as it was delivered
to us by Producers Laura Ziskin and Avi Arad -- director Sam Raimi,
a much beloved geek and friend to comic-readers and film-goers alike,
was too sick to attend. This was an unfortunate bit of info, but it was
soon forgotten (sorry Sam) upon the big, super-dramatic reveal of Alfred
Molina as Doctor Octopus via a slowly revealed image on a banner which
I'm assuming will start appearing in theaters before too long.
Damn. By this point, you've all seen the image on Aint It Cool
News or wherever so you know what I'm talking about, but I mean
really. Damn. The folks over at Sony have come up with a truly bitchin' redesign
for the good doctor. It's like they borrowed the arms off a Sentinel
from the Matrix flicks and just jammed them into Molina's back.
And boy does it work! This, of course, was only confirmed and validated
by the clip that was shown to us. A group of doctors hover over the unconscious
body of Dr. Otto Octavius (lying on his back with a bandage over his
eyes), who has recently survived an accident that left his four mechanical 'helper
arms' grafted to his back, but also linked to his brain via his
spinal chord (we're shown a groovy X-ray for those of us who are
visual thinkers). These are some really long arms, too, that extend the
length of the room in all 4 directions. The decision is made to cut the
damned tentacles off and then see about saving Octavius. "Anyone
remember shop class?" quips a doctor with a saw, preparing to start 'removing' Ock's
new metal apendages. On a side note, I could swear the doctor in question
was Dylan Baker, the actor who's being billed as the one-armed
Dr. Curt Conners in Spider-Man II. Is it possible that he gets his arm
ripped off by Doc Ock in this scene? Anyways, back to business. He's
about to start cutting, and notices some movement from one of the arms
on the gurney. He stops to look for a moment, but then continues. Then
the fun starts. The arms just start going at the doctors, and there's
some serious violence on display here. Not so much gore, but these guys
take a real final and often deadly pounding from these arms. They're
shown throwing people across the room, grabbing people by the face, sending
them through glass and walls. It's also made clear that each arms
can 'see', and sends a visual of what it's doing back
to Ock, who is still lying face down on his table, eyes covered. After 'dealing
with' all the doctors in the room, we see some of the more delicate
work the arms are capable of, as one of them gingerly removes the bandages
from Octavius' face. He then screams, as his new arms flail about.
At first I suspected that Doc Ock was just mad about his fate, but it
sort of made it look like Doc Ock might actually be blind in his eyes
now, only able to see via his tentacles...not sure if that's
true, but it'd be a great new twist on the character. I can't
stress enough how great this footage looked. Even with effects that clearly
weren't finished, I already know that this scene will be a classic
and a big hit in theaters. It also looked a lot like some of director
Sam Raimi's previous work, with extreme facial close-ups and a
sort of wily camera movement. Just top notch stuff, I absolutely cannot
wait for the movie now. This was followed up by a surprise appearance
by Doc Ock himself, Mr. Alfred Molina, who joined Ziskin, Arad, and effects
supervisor John Dysktra in a brief but interesting Q&A session. Not
too much to note here, except a renewed promise that Sam was only using
CG were absolutely necessary, and word from Arad that Venom is being
considered for a third film, despite the darkness he would bring to the
franchise. The Spider-Man II panel was excellent, hats off to all those
involved for really giving it all your effort.
Freebies: A Dr. Otto Octavius Inc. hat.
Grade: A
VAN HELSING: The Van Helsing panel kicked off with
the introduction of some newly edited, but largely uncompleted, footage
from director Steven Sommers (Deep Rising, The Mummy). Even though the
didn't have any effects shots done (according to Sommers, they
had fi nished shooting "half an hour ago"), the vast majority
of what they had assembled looked really impressive. Hugh Jackman looks
very slick as gothic Vamp hunter Abraham Van Helsing, who spent a lot
of the footage swinging around on ropes and swirling his groovy black
cape. His costume in general stood out as an impressive accomplishment,
even though Jackman looked equally good in what appeared to be a shirtless
scene in the rain -- that boy works out, I think. There was less
focus on Helsing's arsenal than I would have expected from advance
word, but maybe they want to save some of their good tricks for the film
itself. Kate Beckinsale, as a gypsy princess who helps Helsing kill Dracula,
seemed to have a costume consisting of a really tight red corset over
really tight white pants. Once again, count me in. She also had some
sword fighting on display, which looked pretty sweet. On the monster
side of things, Will Kemp's Werewolf was a no-show, likely because
advance designs would indicate that he would be largely CG. Dracula (Richard
Roxburgh) had a few fleeting appearances in his human mode, at one point
taking a bite out of some lucky female prey. He always struck me as an
excellent casting choice, and this seemed to support that. Frankenstein's
Monster (Shuler Hensley) got quite a bit of footage since he's
largely done up in make-up. He looked great, really fantastic. Imagine
a cross between the classic design (bolts and the like) and the DeNiro
redesign from a few years ago. Basically, he looks like a bunch of people
sewn together into a huge monster, which is really how he's supposed
to look. And they did a great job with it -- can't wait for
a clearer look. One shot of him cradling a dead body (Dr. Frankenstein?)
surrounded by fire and angry villagers was particularly groovy looking.
The sets were pretty epic in scope, too -- among the locations we
saw were some shots of Dracula's castle (all amped up and super-gothic),
the inside of Dracula's castle during a huge masquerade ball (lots
of big gowns and white masks), and some of Frankenstein's laboratory.
Generally, this pretty much delivered on what I had been hoping for from
this movie. Monster mashing on the grandest scale: bring it on. This
was followed by a pretty massive panel featuring Sommers, his editor,
Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Shuler Hensely, Will Kemp, two of Dracula's
brides, and Kevin J. O'Connor (who plays Igor). Not surprisingly,
Jackman pretty much took center stage the whole time, with multiple fans
asking about Wolverine and X3 (he isn't signed but he'll
probably be coming back) and things like that. A couple neat nuggets
did come from Sommers, however, who mentioned that there may be as many
as 5 or 6 classic Universal Monsters in this movie making cameo capacities.
One fan speculated that the Invisible Man might 'make an appearance' (I'll
just let you come up with your own joke here), but personally I'm
hoping for the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It's a longshot,
I know, but I've still got my fingers crossed.
Freebies: A mega-sized character handout.
Grade: B+
Well, that's my summary. The next year or so looks to bring us
some exciting new projects from everyone, but Sony seems to be leading
the charge. We'll keep you posted on all of them as we hear more!
And now we start the Countdown to Comicon 2004...
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