Comic-Con ‘08: Day 4 Wrap Up

Doug Nagy from TheMovieBlog.com, Alex Billington from Firstshowing.net and me with the three stars of Bitch Slap at the Wrath of Con party

Another day at Comic-Con, another sore rear end from the uncomfortable seats in Hall H…

Today’s events included watching the Season 3 premiere episode of Heroes, which was a huge unexpected bonus. It looks like the show is getting its mojo back and if you’re a fan you’re really going to like it when it returns this Fall.

The Lost panel was attended by the executive producers (who revealed next to nothing) and Matthew Fox (who said almost nothing). They did manage to entertain the crowd, but overall it was cotton candy: a lot of fluff but not very nourishing.

One of the big surprises was how awesome the new Terminator Salvation trailer turned out to be. It was really very impressive and I think it’s going to be right up there with the first two in terms of quality and being a fan favorite when all is said and done.

Another pleasant surprise was Disney showing 20 minutes from their upcoming animated CGI film Bolt. I wouldn’t call it awesome, but I have to say it made me laugh quite a few times and was very cute. It’s certainly not Pixar-great but I think it’s going to be a very good family flick.

After that Pixar director Pete Docter gave a similar presentation for next year’s movie Up, that was given last year for Wall-E. There were a few character renderings and explanations of who they were and there were a couple of extended clips that were right up there with the usual level of story-telling quality. It looks like they’re getting back to issues of the heart instead of continuing down the “message-y” path of Wall-E.

I was going to sit through Universal’s panel and write it up, but I couldn’t bear to watch or hear any more about the awful looking Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. There was a scene where Abominable Snowmen (aks Yetis) were brought in to fight and they had such human mannerisms that it was just plain retarded. Don’t believe me? How about one Yeti kicking a bad guy hard enough to send him flying a very long way and another yet sticking his arms in the air and doing the football touchdown sign?

Sam Raimi and the principals from Drag Me to Hell were at the Universal panel and a clip was shown. While it’s a horror movie, it looks like it has the flavor of the Evil Dead films because it was also very funny in Raimi’s horror movie kind of way. If you’re a fan of those movies, this one looks fantastic and brings Raimi back to his roots. He also said he’s very interested in doing another Evil Dead film.

The unrated trailer for Quarantine, the American version of the Spanish horror film [Rec] actually looks pretty damned good.

Although the Wrath of Con party was great, we didn’t get to meet any real celebs since part of it was roped off as a VIP setion. Oh well… got to hang with my move site buds and the babes from Bitch Slap, a grindhouse type movie due to come out later this year.