2007 San Diego Comic-Con Wrap Up & Thoughts

Just, wow.

I hadn’t been to the San Diego Comic-Con in about seven years, and this was the first time I went as a member of the press. If I had to pick one word to describe my experience it would have to be:

Overwhelming.

I did have a lot of fun, especially at the parties held after the days’ events. In the photo above are some of the folks I met who run other movie sites that I visit every day. From left to right they’re Jessica from FirstShowing.net, Peter from /Film, John from The Movie Blog, Kevin (crouching) from Cinematical, then there I am in my Slusho t-shirt next to John from Advanced Iron and finally Alex from FirstShowing.net. I also met Jen from Rottentomatoes.com, and folks from Chud.com, Rope of Silicon and other sites.

As just one person, it’s impossible to cover everything movie-related going on at the Con due to overlapping panel times and the fact that you have to get in line early for the bigger presentations ahead of time. Not only that, but I was covering news for Screen Rant plus Advanced Iron. I did have some help with the coverage for the A.I. site, but I was also limited by other factors.

I knew going in this wasn’t going to work like clockwork, but with what I’ve learned next year I’ll do things a bit differently.

All in all it was a blast and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of folks I never dreamed I’d get to see face to face including Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr., Terrance Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Burnett (director of one of my all time favorite movies, Free Enterprise), Michael Davis (director of the upcoming Shoot ‘em Up starring Clive Owen) and the writers of Crank and Pathology. I also spent some time talking to Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli from NBC’s Heroes) along with Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes and Spock in the upcoming Star Trek film).

It was great getting a preview of some of the bigger films to come out next year and to be surrounded by tons of other folks who are as geeked out over movies as I am.

I think two of the biggest things to come out of the Con were Beowulf and Iron Man. I think Iron Man is going to turn out to be one of the biggest movies of 2008 and as Marvel Studios’ first film is going to knock one out of the park. It’s too early to tell with The Incredible Hulk, but the panelists certainly were passionate about the project and I think they’re going to come at it from the right angle.

I don’t know how Doomsday will do as another post-apocalyptic movie, Wall-E looks great, Pathology may do well if it can escape being labeled as torture porn (which it’s not). Shoot ‘em Up is definitely worth checking out as a definite R-rated action flick… Balls of Fury could go either way – the clip they showed was pretty funny but I don’t know if the entire film will be. Although doing a send up of the classic Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon with ping pong is a pretty damned funny idea.

The clip and cast of Hot Rod had me laughing, although honestly I thought the scene they showed (which WAS funny) went on for a little bit too long, like they didn’t know when to say “when.”

I know this kind of rambled, but that’s just how it felt while there, so it’s actually quite an appropriate style for this post.

Maybe next year I’ll actually have time to walk the exhibit hall and check out all the booths…