Sarah Michelle Gellar

Comic-Con: Saturday Update

Empire has such sights to show you... Well, tell you about...

25 July 2004

Saturday was THE day at the San Diego Comic-Con. Yes, Friday was pretty great with Batman Begins, Blade: Trinity (including two fantastic clips showcasing the unique talents of new co-stars Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds; namely, ass-kicking and wise-cracking respectively), Constantine, and The Incredibles, to name but four, all represented by panels.

The Grudge

For the first time ever, Sarah Michelle Gellar - Buffy herself - appeared at Comic-Con. To the expected rapturous welcome. She made fun of her non-appearances by presenting a Top 10 list of reasons why she couldn’t come in previous years (“After The Dark Knight Strikes Again, I just gave up on comics”) and, along with co-star Jason Behr, presented a special trailer from The Grudge, the American remake of Shimizu Takashi’s Japanese horror classic, Ju-On. Takashi is also directing the remake, but it was producer Sam Raimi who cut together the trailer, which was creepy, scary and deeply unsettling (the end shot sees Gellar, in the shower, understandably slightly upset when she notices a hand growing out of the back of her head). So far, so good. Can this replicate the success of The Ring?

Saturday, though, took the biscuit. It’s the day when Comic-Con goes wild, and yesterday was no exception. Approximately 100,000 people took advantage of the weekend break and descended upon the San Diego Convention Centre. Only 6,700 of those could fit into the cavernous Hall H at any one time, but they weren’t disappointed as a succession of brilliant panels and presentations for some of the biggest films of the next year paraded before their geeky peepers.

A full and detailed Empire reaction to Comic-Con will be up next week when Chris gets back from San Diego (author’s note: I’m writing it on the plane, assuming my battery holds out), including exclusive interviews and chattery with the likes of Jude Law, Keanu Reeves, David Goyer, Ryan Reynolds, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Tim Story, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Giovanni Ribisi, Sienna Guillory, Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, and more. If you think that list is long, thank your lucky stars you’re not transcribing the interviews...

Until then, here’s a rough breakdown of how Saturday went down at Comic-Con.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Yes, it’s official. As you have no doubt read elsewhere on this site, the title of Episode III was unveiled yesterday after a two-hour Lucasfilm presentation on various Episode III-related chicanery. And the reaction from the legions of fans? That it was good.

The title was unveiled right at the end of the presentation, after Star Wars Fan Relations guru, Steve Sansweet had conducted an interview with producer, Rick McCallum and Darth Vader himself, Hayden Christensen. A brief Q&A followed, during which Christensen revealed that the Anakin-Obi-Wan relationship is the true fulcrum of the picture, McCallum hinted that Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu is the pivotal point that begins Anakin’s descent toward the Dark Side, and in which we got to see Christensen don the Vader armour for the first time, to tumultuous cheers from the audience (many of whom were suitably dressed for the occasion). Christensen wouldn’t be drawn, though, on how long he would be spending in the Vader suit.

Then came the title, revealed in a montage displaying the titles of the previous five films, one by one. Then, as III was displayed on the screen, the word ‘Revenge’ flashed briefly on the screen, before pulling out to reveal ‘Revenge of the Sith’. And lo, the approval was great. Even the guy who told McCallum that Jar Jar had ‘ruined the series’ must have been pleased. And the good news for those who fear that George Lucas might do what he did with Return of the Jedi and delete the word ‘revenge’ at the last minute? “This time,” laughed Sansweet, “George tells us he’s going to keep ‘Revenge’ in the title.” Too bloody right.

Sin City

In a word, amazing. Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller (the creator of the Sin City series of comics, and Rodriguez’ co-director), Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson and Jamie King turned up, with the three blonde babes in particular getting the crowd all riled up. Then came the footage of this incredible project, where Rodriguez and Miller have used greenscreen and digital technology to perfectly replicate the noir-ish black-and-white look of the comics (with occasional bursts of vibrant colour).

Rodriguez showed several clips from the movie, including the showreel featuring Josh Hartnett as an assassin and King as his mark, that he made in secret to convince Miller and many of the A-list stars (Benicio Del Toro, Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Elijah Wood) to be in the under-the-radar project. And it looks, frankly, amazing - not unlike Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow in execution, but somehow more vibrant and vital. And this thing is going to be mean - several of the clips we saw were bloody, brutal and violent.

The use of shadows is masterful and, as Clive Owen confirmed exclusively to Empire last week, it’s extraordinarily faithful to Miller’s vision, retaining dialogue and plot exactly. Rodriguez talked about filling in the imagery between the panels depicted in the comic, about his ricket with the Directors’ Guild of America, and much, much more. All of which you can read about next week.

Team America

Make no mistake: the new movie from South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, could well be the greatest movie ever made. Well, ok maybe not, but in a year that has seen some amazing comedies - Dodgeball, Anchorman, Bad Santa, Van Helsing - this could well be the funniest.

Brief background: the movie is a Marionation (yes, the process used on Thunderbirds et al) political satire, concerning the efforts of a pumped-up US anti-terrorism team to restore democracy to the world and to blow up evildoers in the process. And if that idea doesn’t already seem like genius to you, then you’d best move on. And not hear about how the trailer, specially cut for Comic-Con (the movie is still shooting, nine weeks and counting and while Stone and Parker were hilarious, that showed on their faces), starts with a litany of A-list names. ‘Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, George Clooney, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, George W. Bush, John Kerry and Kim Jong-Il... are all going to be really pissed when they see TEAM AMERICA!’

Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll be too busy laughing themselves silly at the opening sequence, in which Team America has a truly hilarious gunfight with Osama Bin Laden and his weapon of mass destruction in Paris. (Sample dialogue: “Hey, terrorist... terrorise this!”) You will believe the Eiffel Tower can fall on the Arc De Triomphe! You will believe that Marionation (complete with wires and lolling heads) can look good on the big screen!

Or maybe they’ll be busy crying themselves silly at the second sequence shown by the South Park guys (as the audience insisted on calling them), in which the movie’s main villain, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il (with a voice that sounds suspiciously like an Asian Cartman) lures UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix to his underground lair, and deals with his request to look for WMD (“If you do not, I will be forced to write you a strongly-worded letter!”), Bond-villain style. And maybe you had to be there, but the line “Fuck you, Hans Brix! Fuck you, you fucking cocksucker!” could well be the greatest line written by man or beast).

Along with Fahrenheit 9/11, this could well lose the US election for Dubya... that is, if John Kerry wasn’t as wooden as the stars of Team America. “We didn’t want to work with actors,” said Stone (or is it Parker? We get confused). “But they can do things like point, and pick up things, and walk.”

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

Long panel, this, for a movie that Empire saw on Thursday night. Jude Law, director Kerry Conran, Giovanni Ribisi, producer Jon Avnet, Bai Ling, and producer Marsha Oglesby turned up to plug the film which, like Sin City, was shot entirely against greenscreen on HD cameras. And though, as is often the case with these things, the audience focused almost exclusively on Law (damn, that man is photogenic), there was a very good vibe towards this geek-tastic movie, the culmination of Conran’s dreams to make a movie combining such influential touchstones as The Third Man, 1930s Saturday mornings serials, Metropolis, and the Fleischer Superman cartoons.

There were good reaction to several clips, including an opening attack on New York by giant robots and an underwater sequence in which Law’s Sky Captain, along with Angelina Jolie’s Franky Cook, takes on yet more giant robots. More on this movie, with interviews, next week...

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

With Milla Jovovich unable to attend (she did present a video clip) and co-star Oded Fehr a last minute withdrawal, it was up to British actress Sienna Guillory (who plays Jill Valentine, a character all Resident Evil games fans should know and love) to present footage from the sequel to Paul W.S. Anderson’s zombie shoot-‘em-up. And the clip, in which Jovovich’s Alice arrives in the nick of time to save Jill and a couple of other characters from the attentions of a nasty, CG-created creature with great big pointy teeth, was energetic, vibrant and utterly kick-ass. With Shaun of the Dead rapidly becoming the talk of the Con, RE: Apocalypse looks like it might be worthy of carrying the zombie baton onto the end of the year. We also spoke to Guillory afterwards and she’s a delight. Interview to follow soon.

Fantastic Four

No footage from Fox’s superhero movie was shown, for the very good reason that shooting hasn’t started yet. That comes in four weeks in Vancouver, but yesterday three of the Fantastic Four - Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, and Jessica Alba - were in town, along with FF producers, Avi Arad and Ralph Winter and director Tim Story, to talk up the project. And talk it up they did... full transcript to follow next week, but some points of interest: villain Dr. Doom will be cast within a week and will have a wild accent. The movie will draw on the work of original FF artist, Jack Kirby, for production design inspiration. The rockskinned behemoth, The Thing (Chiklis) will be almost entirely practical, with very little CG enhancement. And he will say ‘It’s Clobberin’ Time!’ Which, for the geeks gathered in Hall H, was a ticket to seventh heaven. It’s early days, obviously, but it looks like Marvel’s run of recent cracking movies may be about to continue...

And that’s it, folks. Long? Yeah, but it could have been longer. Today, the Con is winding down, but that doesn’t mean the beat stops for Empire. Oh no, check back tomorrow for news on Seed of Chucky, Shaun of the Dead’s US release, Joss Whedon’s Serenity, and much much more... Oh, and if anyone knows where we can get a mini iPod in San Diego, do let us know on the forums, eh?