Warner Bros. Panel – Comic-Con 2009

There was an opening video where writer of the original book Maurice Sendack and director Spike Jonze talked about the approach to the film. Sendack is very, very happy with Jonze’ vision of his original story and couldn’t say enough positive things. He said it is true to the spirit of the book and it’s an expansion of the story.

Max Records who plays the young boy in Where the Wild Things Are was the first guest and he was quite charming. They – showed about 5 clips which looked great – very rich and textured and Max is going to steal the film.

Book of Eli

For The Book of Eli there was an animatic that frankly I have no idea what had to do with the Denzel Washington / Gary Oldman starring film. When they showed the trailer however – it was very impressive. I really enjoyed seeing Denzel as a bad-ass action hero.

Denzel, Gary and Mila Kunis were on hand along with co-directors Albert and Allen Hughes.

The film takes place 30 years in the future after a war and not too many people are left behind. Denzel and Oldman were cutting it up and the crowd enjoyed it. It’s yet another post-apocalyptic film – but I guess you can never have too many post-apocalyptic films.

Nightmare On Elm Street

Jackie Earle Haley was present along with Brad Fuller, Sam Bayer and Andrew Form were in attendance.

They showed a series of scenes from the film – it looked like a trailer actually – and it was actually very good. Jackie Earle Haley looks like a great fit for the role. The footage opened with the townspeople chasing Freddie and lighting the warehouse where he is hiding on fire (no spoiler there, come on). It hinted that maybe Krueger was innocent, but it could just be him trying to save his own butt.

In this film Freddy will not be joking and it will be more of a straight-up terrorizing angle on the character. They’re looking to reintroduce the character to a new generation.

It does look like it’s going to be a fresh approach – not going for the black humor so much as an all-out horror movie.

The Box

Richard Kelly, director of Donnie Darko and now The Box, along with Cameron Diaz and James Marsten were in attendance. Based on short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson. They showed 4 1/2 minutes from the film and here’s the concept: Frank Langella (with a horribly disfigured but obviously CGI-effects face) shows up and offers Cameron Diaz a box with a large red button. If she presses the button, two things happen: Someone, somewhere dies – and he will bring her one million dollars in cash. Of course beyond the death of someone she doesn’t know there will be very serious consequences that Langella neglected to mention.

The film is set in 1976 and looked very interesting and unusual, and it seemed like there will be more to it then just a thriller.

Kelly said it’s the most personal film he ever made and it was a tribute to his parents and older films.

Jonah Hex

Director Jimmy Hayward was on hand along with Michael Fassbender, Megan Fox and Josh Brolin.

They just finished shooting the movie, Megan Fox’s last shot was done two days ago. Footage cut exclusively for Comic-Con. The footage was impressive – lots of action and tough guy dialog/scenes by Josh Brolin. It won’t be a “slow” Western – tons of actions, gunfights, explosions, etc. It looked really great and Brolin was good, but I couldn’t help thinking that I still would have loved to see Nathan Fillion in the role.

Megan Fox plays a prostitute that Hex has been seeing for years – he keeps her at a distance because everyone that comes into his life dies.

Some moron asked Megan Fox if she’d be interested in helping him kick-off his film career by filming a sex tape. He was pulled away immediately.

The audience reaction when Hayward asked if people would see the movie was good, but nowhere close to “bring the house down” like the reaction during the Kick-Ass panel yesterday. Josh Brolin said the film was only made for approximately $35MM – all the money is onscreen, there were no big paychecks for the actors and they did it for the love of the script/movie.

Josh Brolin was really very funny, goofing on one of the people who asked a question – but in a very nice way. He talked about how he liked working on really original stories.

Sherlock Holmes

Robert Downey Jr. walked out and the crowd went nuts. Personally I think this is a hint of how the Iron Man 2 panel is going to go tomorrow. He said Sherlock Holmes was the first superhero – an intellectual superhero and martial artist.

They showed and extended Comic-Con trailer for the film and it was very engaging, action packed and a lot of fun. It really highlighted what Downey is bringing to the role and I enjoyed the relationship between Downey and Jude Law as Watson. Watson is not as subservient in this version but more of a partner who actually sometimes saves Sherlock’s bacon.

They had one scene in particular that really highlighted Holmes’ great intelligence – in the boxing scene already shown in the trailer they go through his step by step thought processes on how to take down his huge opponent. Very analytical down to the consequences and recovery time, and then after that they show him execute his plan and it goes perfectly as he takes the guy down in about 4 quick steps.

Producers Susan Downey, Joel Silver and Lionel, Wigram along with Rachel McAdams were also in attendance. Downey Jr. had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand – he really is incredibly charming. He also talked about he and Joel Silver really wanting to go for it if they were going to attack such a well known and classic property, with the possibility of creating a franchise. He said that that actually most incarnations had really veered away from the original concept of the character and stories.

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