Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. The NYCC sounded like a blast this year. Maybe I'll be on the ground covering it next year. Anyway, we have some in-depth looks at the Lucasfilm, Wanted and Hellboy 2 panels, including updates on all of Guillermo del Toro's rumored projects and pics to go along with everything! Enjoy!
Hi Harry, I attended the New York Comic Con this past weekend and a few of the bigger panels (Lucasfilm, Wanted, Hellboy 2) with it so thought I'd report in. Lucasfilm: This panel was, for the most part, lame. I don't know if it was quite "prequels lame." But it was close. It was hosted by Steve Sansweet (Director of Content Management and Head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm). Most of the content shown or discussed was old news or a spin on old news. The short of it was...The Clone Wars movie and TV show are coming out soon. Young Indiana Jones Volume 3 DVD is coming out soon (on a whopping 10 discs). Indiana Jones 4 is coming out soon (and you can expect individual releases for all Indy films on DVD soon...complete with new bonus features thanks to Lucasfilm's Double Dip Department™). Lego Indiana Jones is coming out soon. Force Unleashed is coming out soon. The Star Wars Robot Chicken special is coming to DVD soon.
The long version goes like this...Lucas is very involved with the CG-animated Clone Wars. He was originally expected to check in with the people working on it maybe 2-3 times a year, and ended up seeing them 2-3 times a week (I haven't quite decided if that's good news or bad news). Good to know that he's at least genuinely excited about the project. A mini-documentary was shown that focused on his involvement and what they're trying to do with the project. Highlight of that was the detailing of a vertical, mountain-side battle that occurs at one point, complete with repelling Anakin, clone soldiers and AT-TEs. As with many Star Wars fans, the prequels really dampened my excitement regarding anything new from the Star Wars camp, so I'm decidedly "meh" on the new animated movie/show. That this movie is coming out in August and there's been little fanfare about it from the masses convinces me that it's nothing more than a throwaway theatrical release/cash grab in anticipation of the eventual Cartoon Network show. It reminds me a lot of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius for Nickelodeon, which resulted in an enjoyable show, but didn't exactly enthrall animation fans when the movie was released (we'll just ignore that little Oscar nomination in 2001). The dry spell on Indy news was the biggest disappointment of the panel for me. Here we are, almost a month away from Indy's first theatrical outing in almost 20 years and we don't get a clip or new trailer. The LEAST they could have done was show the uncensored Indy 4 trailer for the hundreds of geeks in attendance. Since I discovered the magical moving Communist pants and boxes about half way through the trailer, it's ALL I can focus on when watching it on a big screen. All that was shown was the regular trailer for Indy 4 and Lego Indy. Not even a mention of the OTHER, more realistic Indiana Jones game that's been in development for some time and shrouded in secrecy for the past few months. A new book exploring extensive amounts of behind-the-scenes info on the first three movies was unveiled, but seeing as how it wasn't passed around for the class to look at, I'll consider it a non-event for now. That mention of DVD double dips for all three original movies didn't help things either. Everything else got trailers that we've all seen before. The high point of the event was the on-stage interview with Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich. Both are genuine Star Wars nerds, as anybody who watches Robot Chicken could guess, and they know how to work a room and make fans laugh. They entertained all with stories of how the Star Wars special came into being and what it's like to direct George Lucas (for the voiceover sessions). It was a nice change-up from the bland company shilling that preceded. All in all it was a lackluster showing from Lucasfilm. Wanted:
This "panel," if you could call it that, featured only director Timur Bekmambetov, best known for Day Watch and Night Watch, presenting on behalf of his latest effort coming out this summer, Wanted. I haven't read the comic the movie is based off of, so know that I'm approaching this as a fresh viewer. Bekmambetov's grasp (or lack thereof) of the English language made it difficult for him to articulate some of the things he wanted to say about the film, but that was overshadowed by his enthusiasm for being there and finally unveiling some snippets of Wanted to a large, eager audience. He showed two full clips. I didn't take any notes during the panel, so I might mix up a few events from the scenes, but you should get the gist of it. The first begins with Fox (Angelina Jolie) sneaking up on Wesley (James McAvoy) in the supermarket. The dialogue covers similar ground from the trailer...Fox reveals she knew Wesley's estranged father well. He was a great assassin and was murdered just the night before. Wesley isn't exactly sure what to do with that information and is about to brush Fox off, when both are attacked by the very man that killed Wesley's father, Cross (played by Thomas Kretschmann, taking a break from aiding and abetting known large ape hunters). What follows is an over-the-top chase sequence that begins with a tense shoot-out. As Wesley tries to escape, Fox holds him back, all the while exchanging fire with Cross using a U-shaped gun that fires around corners. We occasionally get shots from Wesley's POV as his heart races (he has a "problem" that causes it operate at 400 beats per minute, which he suppresses using heart pills), which in turn causes the POV image to pulsate and fade at the edges. It's a neat little effect that adds to the intensity of the sequence. At one point, Wesley is able to make a break for it, bolting for the door of the market and racing into the parking lot. Some of it is captured in slow-motion, and it's here that you get a sense of the direction this movie is heading in. McAvoy running (in this movie, at least) is some funny shit to watch. His limbs and mouth in particular flap around like Jell-O Jigglers. All the while he's screaming and crying for help, which is also slowed down for, I'd wager, comedic effect. You can tell this movie isn't going to take itself too seriously. Wesley is almost hit by a truck in the parking lot, but fortunately Fox speeds onto the scene in her obligatory sports car, pulls a 360 with the passenger door open, and before he knows it, Wesley is miraculously inside the vehicle. They quickly take to the highway in an attempt to evade Cross, the police, and anything resembling a reasonable decibel level. Wesley protests to no end (more than a tad grating) while Fox tells him to keep quiet. After some wild driving, Fox shoots up and removes the windshield of her car, then demands Wesley take the wheel. She climbs out onto the hood, faces backwards, and assumes what I can only describe as a "birthing position" with her feet still in the car. Wesley grabs her ankles and attempts to keep his eyes on both the road and the promised land. Considering the look on his face, one can presume Fox takes after Britney and Lindsay in the underwear department. After firing countless more bullets, she climbs back into the vehicle. A couple shots from Cross using this movie's patented bullet-bending techniques allow him to take out Fox's wheels, which in turn causes the car to flip over a police barricade. During the flip, we see Wesley, upside-down in the car at this point, pass by a lone cop standing in front of the barricade, and yell "I'm sooooorrrrrryyyyy" in slow-motion. Caught up in the balls-to-the-wall silliness of the whole chase scene, it was pretty funny and got a rise out of the audience. The car "lands" sideways onto the side of a moving bus, the inertia of which causes the bus to flip on ITS side. With the bus on its side, the car is now right-side up, so Fox simply drives off of the bus back onto the road and to safety. It's a crazy sequence that, despite a few too many quick cuts, contains some cool gags and really great energy. The crowd was definitely into it. The second scene takes place right after the chase scene. It wasn't color corrected, had a temp score and the effects weren't finished, but the scene was plenty complete so as to not detract from the viewing. Fox has escorted Wesley to her group's hideout. The group (I don't remember the name) is led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), who converses with Wesley as only Morgan Freeman can. Wesley is told of his past: his infamous father, one of the greatest assassins in the world, and his gift for killing, which it is believed Wesley has inherited. That Wesley's heart beats at such an accelerated rate is not an accident. It allows him to do incredible things, like kick in a Spider Sense/Bullet-time effect for shootin' stuff good. Ultimately, Sloan and the rest of his crew want Wesley to join them. Wesley ain't havin' it. Sloan demands Wesley "shoot the wings off of a fly," to which Wesley expresses that he has no clue as to what that even means. Sloan, of course, means it literally, as Wesley is handed a gun and forced at gunpoint by another assassin crony to do as told. Wesley's heart pills are tossed out of the way to allow him to focus. When push comes to shove at gunpoint, Wesley performs like a trained seal, firing his gun on some flies hovering around a garbage bin. He's handed the evidence of his accomplishment by Sloan: a handful of still-kickin', wingless flies. Wesley is more than a little tweaked out by all of these shenanigans and attempts to exit. He heads for the stairs, where Fox happens to be standing. Wesley asks her numerous times to get out of the way so he can leave. He may be angry, annoyed and brandishing a gun, but he's no killer (at least, not yet), so Fox just stands there, smirking, trying not to laugh at this adorable little boy attempting to act macho. It's a subtle little moment that reminds you why Angelina Jolie was a good pick for the role. Girl knows how to have fun on a movie set. After a few more requests, Fox obliges and moves out of the way. If I recall, the scene ended shortly after that. There was an audience Q&A after the clips were shown, but most audience members had a worse understanding of the English language than Bekmambetov, yet English was their first language. Note to convention/panel-goers: If you ask a question at a panel, don't add lots of disclaimers and a backstory to your question. Overall, both scenes were very cool. I didn't have a great interest in seeing this movie before the panel, but now it's on my radar. If you're looking for a fun time at the movies with something that's well aware it's a bloated summer popcorn flick, my guess is you'll have a good time watching Wanted come June 27. Hellboy 2:
Guillermo del Toro is the man. He's the perfect blend of educated filmmaker and self-deprecating jokester you'd want at a convention. Plus he says the word "fuck" a lot. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a Q&A at last year's Tribeca Film Fest, where he unveiled Pan's Labyrinth stateside, and he couldn't have been nicer. He took a moment to chat with all fans that approached him and his rapport with an audience is second to none. A year, some awards and a potential blockbuster later, and he's still a great guy to share a room with (all gay and fat jokes aside). Guillermo came out to a standing ovation and strobes of flash photography. He wrote some funny intros for each one of the cast members that joined him, which included Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss and creator of all things Hellboy, Mike Mignola. He kicked things off by dimming the lights and showing a three minute "sizzle reel" of footage from the flick. He prefaced it by saying that some shots were unfinished or not color corrected. The crowd seemed most excited by snippets of Johann Kraus' appearance in the reel. I don't know much of the Hellboy lore (I haven't read the comics), so as far as I was concerned, the reel didn't look all that different from the trailers we've seen. Look, I could care less, because the real surprise came when the lights turned back on. Standing on the stage, alongside the seated panel speakers, was a slew of practical creatures from the film.
Pyramid Head-looking soldiers. A rather large grunt of a monster. Some sort of Total Recall/Kuwato-type creature that had a gimpy arm and moving baby...thing...attached to its stomach. I can't even begin to do these things justice with a description, so please see the pictures I've attached and hopefully you can post them along with my li'l article. The panel could have been an hour of just staring at these things and the audience would have been mesmerized. The attention to detail is staggering and they're spectacular to look at up close. They speak to why fans of del Toro adore the guy so much: he loves movie monsters as much as we do and boy howdy does he prefer to make them practically whenever possible.
There was a little bit of Q&A with the rest of the crew on the panel, but for the most part del Toro took the ball and ran with it. As for news from the event, fans will be happy (or sad, depending on your preferences) to know that Seth MacFarlane will be voicing Johann Kraus in the film. The original actor's voice had a vocal register that was too similar to the hissing sounds of the suit used in Johann's scenes (del Toro said the combined noises of suit and voice made sounds like farting), so MacFarlane took his place and del Toro is plenty happy with the results.
He also talked about a concept he's working on for his next small film, which is still at least a couple years away, called "Saturn and the End of Days," wherein a boy named Saturn observes Revelations as he travels back and forth to the supermarket. Another fun bit of info is a creature/scene that DIDN'T make it into Hellboy 2: a three-headed dog licking itself. A maquette was made up but there simply wasn't room for the thing in the final movie. Del Toro promised he'd post a pic of the maquette on the Hellboy blog next week along with a dedication of the post to a young boy that asked a question about del Toro's creature inspirations. Other than that, there's no news to deliver on The Hobbit (still awaiting legal to work out the paperwork) and At the Mountains of Madness (del Toro wants to do it but no one will finance it).
Hope you enjoyed the NYCC rundown. Next up? 2008 Tribeca Film Fest!
