July
15
#SDCC: Directors Visit Comic-Con for First Time
Comic-Con 2009 is front-loaded. Most of the key movie stuff happens on the first day, Thursday July 23, and Friday, with Iron Man 2 the main play on Saturday. (Here's the EW Iron Man 2 cover-preview.) The trick is to balance the crowded Hall H panels, trawling the exhibition floor, backstage interviews, screenings and parties with actual blogging. Yikes.
Last year I took the Fox City of Ember train down to San Diego, which worked great, actually. I loved not having to worry about a car, but I was staying at the Omni, right across from the Convention Center, so I was spoiled. This year I'm farther away, so I'll drive down at the crack of dawn Thursday to get my pass in time (!) to start off the day with the 11 AM Disney 3-D panel. Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland) returns to the Con for the first time since college, while Bob Zemeckis (A Christmas Carol ) is coming for the first time. Burton will stay to do some press, Zemeckis will not.
The combo of Disney's 3-D animation panel and James Cameron's Avatar pushed the Comic-Con folks to install 3-D in the 65,000-square-foot Hall H. The Titanic director will attend the Con for the first time to show the first U.S. 3-D footage of Avatar, along with stars Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang. (Exhibs in L.A. screen the 20 minutes already shown in Amsterdam at Cinema Expo on Thursday July 16.) Sam Worthington, who debuted at The Con last year with Terminator: Salvation, is stuck in Wales playing Perseus in Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans. (Check out the photo: Gerard Butler, watch your back.) Fox will also promote off-site Diablo Cody and Karyn Kusama's horror comedy Jennifer’s Body , starring Megan Fox.
Cameron is participating in another Thursday panel on The Future of Filmmaking with Avatar's VFX czar, Weta chief Peter Jackson, who is also coming for the first time--he usually beams video to Hall H from Wellywood. Attendees are expecting to see Adventures of Tin-Tin footage. Jackson is also pushing his production of the sci-fi thriller District 9 on Friday. He's not involved in LOTR fan site Onering.net's side panel on pre-production of Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit, which Jackson is also supervising in Wellywood. UPDATE: Word from Jackson's people: it's way too early for a Bilbo announcement.
Another Comic-Con virgin is Disney/Pixar animation czar John Lasseter, who will host an animation panel Friday with Japanese master Hayeo Miyazaki (must-see Ponyo screens Wednesday night), Disney's John Musker and Ron Clements (2-D The Princess and the Frog), and Kirk Wise (Toy Story 3). This is my idea of Heaven.
Thursday's crazy madness will be the Twilight: New Moon panel. Heartthrob Rob Pattinson will appear (reminder: must pack earplugs) with co-stars Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner and director Chris Weitz, but lovelorn vampire Edward Cullen isn't the main character in the movie, so Pattinson won't participate in any backstage interviews. Summit is screening Twilight for the fans with cast members on hand. Summit is scheduled to film the third installment of the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, from August 17 through October 31 in Vancouver with David Slade (30 Days of Night) directing Melissa Rosenberg's screenplay.
To promote Park Chan-wook's vampire movie Thirst (which played well in May's Cannes competition), Focus Features mailed the press a pouch of blood in advance of the Thursday panel, and will screen the intense horror film Friday night.
Some films won't be rating panels at this year's Con, although they may have some viral or off-site happenings or displays on the exhibition floor. Universal, for one, is skipping Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Disney is ignoring the live action Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Surrogates. Cash-strapped The Weinstein Co. passed on promoting Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Rob Zombie's Halloween II, The Road (starring Viggo Mortensen), Youth in Revolt (starring Con-friendly Michael Cera), and Piranha 3-D.
Warner Bros. probably isn't bringing Joel Silver's long-delayed screen adaptation of the graphic novel Whiteout because it was promoed last year. Also missing are Ninja Assassin and Zack Snyder’s animated 3D Guardians of Ga’Hoole. It's early days yet for MGM to promote the Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard horror comedy The Cabin in the Wood, but Whedon fans can catch the first three webisodes of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Thursday night.
Brian Lowry vets Comic-Con on the TV side.
I was going to leave Saturday, but David Tennant is showing up for a Dr. Who panel on Sunday morning. I may have to stay on.
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Posted by: sijagur | July 16, 2009 at 02:54 AM
I hope Cameron's crowd doesn't consist entirely of screaming Twilight tweens.
Avatar is clearly the highlight of the show, hopefully the footage will leak to youtube pronto.
Posted by: Mark | July 16, 2009 at 04:45 PM
Why do I have a feeling Avatar will bomb this year? Even Terminator did mildly success, but not great one. With 240 million budget, I doubt they will get that back in return from box office.
Posted by: Guest | July 18, 2009 at 05:21 PM
I just can’t believe that Rob won’t participate! Gosh sorry for the word but, it’s the truth, this year is gone suck! They can’t do this, don’t they know that mostly of their fans likes Rob (Edward), like he’s one of the reasons we want to watch the movie! : (
Posted by: Hortencia | July 19, 2009 at 10:01 AM
It totally sucks that ROB will NOT be doing any interviews. we all want to hear what he has to say. WHAT THE HELL DO THEY MEAN (NOT A MAIN CHARACTER) ROB IS THE MAIN EVENT. WHEN DO WE GET SOME ROB INTERVIEWS?????
Posted by: gyla | July 19, 2009 at 07:22 PM
There's only 1 star of New Moon! That would Edward Cullen. I agree Edward/Rob is the MAIN EVENT! This is a love story between 2 people let's hope the director does not ruin this movie for the Edward/Rob fans.
I would not think Stephanie Meyer would let this happen.
Posted by: ayesadie | July 19, 2009 at 09:02 PM
As far as I'm concerned Rob is the only star that can't be replaced in the movie. We go to see the movie because of Robert, who Stephanie Meyer describes as "and I quote" he is Edward. The many thousands of fans are screaming for interviews from Rob, not Krist and not Taylor, but Robert Pattinson. SO WHY IS SUMMIT TRYING TO SHUT HIM OUT, HE IS THE MOVIE.
Posted by: thereal kristen | July 19, 2009 at 09:12 PM
Robert Pattinson is so overexposed.
It's a good thing his people have a clue. He needs to try to lay low as possible or his shelf life will be very short. Esp. since he's not a very good actor.
Posted by: anyhoo | July 20, 2009 at 09:27 AM
Kristen I totally disagree. It's true the fans love Robert Pattinson for his looks but I loved his acting most of all!
Posted by: Christy | July 22, 2009 at 09:29 AM
Sorry, I read the name wrong. I was meaning to reply to "anyhoo"
Posted by: Christy | July 22, 2009 at 09:30 AM