Welcome back to AP’s Comic-Con coverage. Here’s the highlights from Day Two of the San Diego Comic-Con.
Nicholas Cage made an appearance for his new film Drive Angry 3D. Patrick Lussier directed the movie, which looks to be a classic, violent revenge tale. Cage is one of my favorite actors and always looks for slightly different roles and this looks no different. Check out this short trailer:
Firstshowing.net has a great write-up of the awesome Tron: Legacy viral that took place over the past couple days in San Diego.
Robert Rodriguez’s Machete has had a big presence at this year’s Comic-Con. A new red-band trailer debuted, but even better was the Taco Truck. Stars Danny Trejo and Michelle Rodriguez were on the streets of San Diego handing out taco’s from a branded trailer. Now that’s a good marketing ploy.
Jackass 3D premiered some footage that apparently was ridiculously disgusting. If you are a fan of the series, you should stay tuned for more information, but this doesn’t interest me at all.
Another interesting film also debuted a trailer yesterday. Goon, produced by David Fincher and starring Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti, looks like a pretty awesome animated film. Based on a comic series by Eric Powell, the story follows The Goon and his sidekick Franky as they battle the supernatural. I had never heard of this before, but check out this great clip/trailer:
During the Burn Notice panel, USA Network head Jeff Watchel announced that they were moving forward with a prequel movie starring Bruce Campbell. The film will focus on Sam Axe’s last mission as a Navy SEAL and is a very interesting move for the series. I didn’t expect such great news from this panel. In response Campbell said, “USA finally got their shit together.”
Frank Darabont showed off a first glimpse at his television series The Walking Dead. Produced for AMC, the series reportedly has an extremely high production value and should look amazing. I don’t know about you, but I think a zombie TV show should be one of the coolest things on TV. Make sure you watch this coming fall when the series debuts in October.
In contrast to the great reaction to The Walking Dead, Steven Spielberg’s new TV series, Falling Skies, was not as well-received. The series follows Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood as everyday people who are affected by an alien invasion. There are always high expectations for any project Spielberg is involved with, but the reaction has been lukewarm. Devindra Hardawar from /Film was not impressed. The footage isn’t available online so I can’t judge that, but this show looks to me like same-old, same-old. There’s nothing really new about it and I’m not looking forward to it.
Guillermo Del Toro is a very busy man nowadays. After day one’s surprise announcement that he would be writing and producing Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, the filmmaker debuted footage from another one of his horror projects, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Based on the 1973 TV movie, the film follows a young girl as she encounters various creatures after moving into a haunted house with her family. The footage screened at the panel got a great reaction, and we should be able to see the trailer in the next few weeks. And for those of you worried about the film being watered down, Del Toro had this to say, “We are not taking anything away from the original, and we are not fucking chickening out… we wrote and originally shot the movie for PG-13, and could do that without compromising the scares…But we were given a badge of honor. The MPAA came back and gave it a non-negotiable R for ‘pervasive scariness’.” So there you go, horror fans.
MTV Movies Blog was able to talk to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman who are now writing the sequel to J.J. Abrams’ fantastic Star Trek reboot. While they were very quiet about plot details, they stated that each and every crewmember would get more screentime in the sequel, saying, “Now the whole family is there and you want to focus on them first. Before you worry too much about new characters, make sure you have them taken care of.”
Last but definitely not least is James Gunn’s Super. The movie stars Rainn Wilson as a man who dons a superhero costume in order to avenge his wife’s (Liv Tyler) murder. Ellen Page and Nathan Fillon co-star. I can’t wait to see this movie, which sounds like a low-budget, rawer version of Kick Ass with Dwight from The Office.
So that’s it for Day Two. The Marvel panel is starting in just a few minutes, so stay tuned for some big news.
