Comic Con 2006
by Suzanne Phillips
FRIDAY – July 21, 2006
DAY 1
WARNER BROS.
Warner Bros. came to COMIC-CON to bring a preview of some of their upcoming
2006/2007 releases and brought along some of the stars and production teams
to share some inside info on the making of the films.
THE REAPING
Joel Silver - Producer (The Matrix)
Stephen Hopkins – Director Lost In Space
Hillary Swank – Actress (Million Dollar Baby)
Anna Sophia Robb – Actress (Because of Wynn-Dixie)
Synopsis: The 10 Plagues of the book of Exodus start to happen to a small
town in the Bible belt. The townsfolk blame a small girl, believing that she
is the Devil. Hillary Swank plays an investigator trying to debunk the myth
that the child is to blame and prove that the events can all be explained in
a scientific manner.
Tidbits from the question and answer panel:
The film was shot in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. The production had
to break a couple of times during filming and they lost a lot of equipment.
Question: What is the one thing a director should never do while working
with actors?
Answer: Hillary Swank – A director who doesn’t’ want to collaborate is a bad
thing and no line readings, that is a big one.
Hillary Swank
Hillary said that she likes to get under the skin of a character. For THE
REAPING she had a subscription to THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER magazine and read a
lot of books on debunking and read the bible a lot for research.
Question: Why was this project interesting to you?
Swank: Nothing in life is, as it seems. We are quick to judge things. It is
important to stay open to things.
Hopkins: I have wanted to do a creepy thing for ages.
Robb: The film has many elements of the Bible in it and I found that very
interesting.
THE WICKER MAN
This film is a re-make of the Christopher Lee classic starring Nicolas Cage,
Aaron Eckhart and Ellen Burstyn. This is a new version of this story, not a
shot-by-shot remake. The island society has changed to a Matriarchal society
with Ellen Burstyn in the role as the leader of the group. The main industry
of this island is now honey production. The films social structure resembles
that of a beehive. Look for THE WICKER MAN on September 1st, 2006.
HARRY POTTER
Star Daniel Radcliffe and Director David Yates sent a video from the set of
the set of the 5th film to give us an idea of what to expect in the next
installment of this highly popular series.
• Look for the new character of Professor Umbridge who Yates describes as a
cross between Doris Day and Freddy Kruger.
• There is a huge battle for Harry’s soul in this episode.
• As for the Kiss…..well they just left you hanging on that one, you will
have to wait till the film comes out to see!
SUPERMAN RETURNS
Director Bryan Singer brought a short blooper reel, which had some great
moments with the stars of the film flubbing their lines, tripping, things
falling down and just laugh out loud takes from the filming of SUPERMAN
RETURNS.
Said Singer: “ There was a lot of Visual Effects work on this film. Neither
Kevin Spacey or Brandon Routh had ever done this much Effects work before.”
A question was posed to the director as to why he chose to give Superman a
son that was born out of wedlock and he responded, “Superman is a tough
character to create obstacles for that are insurmountable. Having a child is
one way to do that (create obstacles for someone with super powers who is
virtually indestructible).
Singer went on to say: “In action films, if you don’t care about the
characters, you don’t care about the action.” He believes that the
characters have to be well developed for the film to work.
Legendary producer Richard Donner who directed the original SUPERMAN film
joined Singer onstage and brought a clip of some of the footage that he shot
for SUPERMAN 2 before being let go from the project. This footage had been
sitting on a shelf for 20 years and was a revealing look at what we can
expect when the DVD of Donner’s original film is re-released this year.
20TH CENTURY FOX
Fox brought us some wonderful info on what they have up their sleeves for
the coming months, and boy are we in for some treats and some surprises!
ERAGON – this beloved book is being adapted for the big screen in a version
starring Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou and newcomer Ed Speleers. Dragons and
riders and slayers – oh my! Release date is December 15, 2006.
RENO 911: MIAMI
Lieutenant Jim Dangle, Deputy Trudy Wiegel and Deputy Travis Junior from the
Washau county Sheriff department were on hand to talk about the upcoming
“mocumentary” of their trip to Miami and the work that they did there. The
three actors that play these roles, Thomas Lennon, Ben Garant, and Kerri
Kenney ad-libbed with the moderator and had the audiences in stitches. If
you are a fan of the Comedy Central show, you are going to want to get out
to see this film when it opens early next year.
PATHFINDER
Stars Karl Urban, Clancy Brown and German director Marcus Nispel give us a
look into Vikings in America 500-600 years before Columbus. This film has a
very distinct visual style as Nispel and production designer Christopher Sky
basically designed an entire graphic novel before shooting the film and used
this as a basis for the shots they wanted once filming began.
Director Marcus Nispel had wanted to make a film about Gladiators or Pirates
before settling on Vikings. Nispel says that Viking culture and history
means something different in Europe than in the US. He had never seen a
Viking/Native American story explored onscreen before, event though there
has been proof found be researchers at the Smithsonian that Vikings explored
as far south as Boston and New York.
The wanted to use Viking horn helmets but didn’t want to use the
stereotypical ones that you usually see with the two horns sticking straight
up. In doing research they found that some men would use horns from
different animals all over their helmets and tried to incorporate this into
the film.
Veteran Actor Clancy Brown who plays Gunnar, the leader of the Vikings in
PATHFINDER, was on hand to share his experiences on this unique film.
Brown has very few lines in the film – indeed the story contains very little
dialogue at all – but he had to learn Icelandic for the role and could be
heard screaming in his trailer at various times throughout the day as he was
trying to perfect this language.
Karl Urban, who plays the lead character called Ghost, was very content to
remain the strong and silent one and has no dialogue in this film and must
rely solely on facial expressions and body language and movement to convey
the feeling of his character.
Clancy Brown said that Karl made him mad when he wanted to do some of
“Ghost’s” aerial stunts instead of using the stunt double, causing Clancy to
have to do his own stunts in the same scene as well. He never forgave him
for that.
Karl Urban got the role because Director Nispel saw THE BOURNE SUPREMACY and
was taken with Karl’s character of Kirill, a Russian assassin. His only
concern was that Karl might not speak English! He then found out that Karl
is, of course, from New Zealand.
The dark, violent and highly unique film PATHFINDER opens September 8th,
2006.
One
of the biggest events today was Samuel L. Jackson and the SNAKES ON A PLANE
panel. One of the most widely discussed and anticipated films of the year;
this panel drew a huge capacity crowd in excess of 6,500 attendees.
The filmmakers have recently drawn the ire of critics by refusing to screen
the film for them before release to the public, which has garnered
speculation that they do not believe in this film. We were assured that the
reason for this was that they wanted the fans to have the opportunity to see
it first as they were the people it was made for.
Star Samuel L. Jackson was a huge hit with the crowd and was cracking jokes
and showing his love and gratitude to the fans for all of their help in
making sure that the word got out about this film.
The film’s snake wrangler brought along some of the huge snakes that are
part of the film-the biggest of which took 4 people to carry onstage!
Please put your tray tables in their upright and locked position, because
SNAKES ON A PLANE opens September 18, 2006.