Comic-Con ‘08: Summit Panel – Push

Chris Evans, Camille Belle, Djimon Hounsou and director Paul McGuigan are on hand to promote the movie Push. The film is about people with psychic abilities and how governments around the world attempt to train and use them for warfare and spying.

The showed the opening title sequence of the film which takes a very real world approach showing archival footage going back to WWII and the 1950s.

Director McGuigan wanted this to seem like something real as far as the situation, even if the abilities are paranormal. The characters aren’t super-powered but are regular people who happen to have these abilities. Some people can push memories on others (Pushers), others are “Movers” who have telekinetic powers. Then there are “Watchers” who can see the future. Dakota Fanning plays a watcher in the film but was not at the panel due to getting stuck in traffic.

A clip was shown featuring Hounsou which indicated this is a pretty serious looking film as far as tone, and then an extended scene with Chris Evans and Fanning was shown where they were cornered by a bunch of other psychic bad guys.

This is the first I’ve heard of this film but it actually looked pretty good – don’t know why I haven’t seen anything about this yet. It looks well acted and has some powerhouse actors in it (no, I don’t mean Chris Evans).

Chris Evans said his character is a Pusher who has turned his back on his powers for the most part, except for personal gain.

They talked about all the different types of psychics in the film.

Hounsou talked about real psychics that he has met (yeah, I know…).

McGuigan was attracted to the script because it has intrigue and sci-fi. He believes it’s unique and fun (didn’t look “fun” to me) and the Hong Kong background is a character in itself.

Push opens February 2009.