I know I exaggerate a lot on here, but today I am not.  I got in the longest line I've ever seen at Comic-Con.  It nearly stretched around the entire building (you can soon see the entire trip from end of the line to my seat here on Infuze).  Why?  It was the Warner Bros panel.  With sneak peeks at Get Smart, The Invasion, Whiteout, One Missed Call, Trick 'r Treat, 10,000 BC, there was lots to see.  The only big disappointment for most was the massive lack of Batman: The Dark Knight footage, but it's already been said that they're saving that for WizardWorld Chicago, since some of it was filmed there.

Here are the highlights from the panel...

The day got started with big laughs and thunderous applause for the Steve Carell starring Get Smart remake.  Steve was joined on stage by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Masi Oka (Heroes), Ken Davitian (Borat), Nate Torrence (Studio 60), and director Peter Segal. Aside from the crowd pleasing, big action, big laugh extended trailer we saw, the director promised that we'd see cameos from actors from the original tv series as well as new versions of favorite characters like Heimey and Agent 13. This looks like one of the guaranteed big hits of next summer, especially after the rest of the world gets to see the footage we just saw.

Nicole Kidman sent a sweet, rambling yet edited greeting from Australia, where she's filming another movie with Baz Lurman (Moulin Rouge).  She introduced a clip of the upcoming Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake called The Invasion that co-stars Daniel Craig. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything we haven't seen before.

Shannyn Sossamon and Edward Burns showed up to promote their Japanese horror remake called One Missed Call, about an evil spirit that inhabits your voicemail and lets you listen to how you're going to die (no, seriously). They each looked uncomfortable on stage, especially since Shannyn looked like she really didn't want to be there. But before retreating to the safety of backstage, they ended up giving brand new iPhones to the 4 people who asked them inane questions. Makes me wish I had more inane questions and not so many inane answers in my life.

After killing as much time as possible, producer Joel Silver, director Dominic Sena, and creator/writer Greg Rucka answered as many questions as they could about their Antarctic murder mystery thriller Whiteout before they hunted their star Kate Beckinsale and tore her from the comforts of backstage, where she may have been comforting Shannyn and Ed. But once on stage, Kate was a ray of sunshine, both charming and disarmingly hilarious in ways I can't print here. I could look at and listen to her all day.  *sigh*

The panel finished off with Watchmen, with lots of information from director Zack Snyder (300)...

• They're going to do their best to incorporate the secondary pirate storyline into the film to interweave into the main plot just like the book.  Zack even submitted it as its own script, hoping to confuse the studio by keeping the script stacks short.
• The sets are stylized, but more like Se7en and not like Sin City.
• The film will take place in the mid-80s, just as the book did (that's when it was written).
• Everyone's backstory will be included (at least that's the intent).
• It will be rated R.
• Zach confirmed a number of actors for the film: Jack Earle Haley as Rorschach, Malin Ackerman as Laurie (both in attendance on stage), Billy Crudup as Dr Manhattan, Patrick Wilson as the Night Owl, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian, and Stephen McHattie as Hollis.
• Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons created an exclusive movie style poster for Comic-Con, revealed for the first tim given to all panel attendees.

Robin can tell you all about the Star Wars panel, so other than that, my afternoon was spent roaming the floor again, running into Masi Oka (Hiro on Heroes) at the Heroes booth as he pulled out raffle numbers to win hourly Heroes lunchbox prizes (did I say Heroes enough?).  My night eventually wound down at Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, where Warner Bros was hosting a DVD release party for the movie 300.  Thousands were in attendance, but I didn't get much further than the free food and drinks in the ancient middle eastern styled red carpet/VIP area filled with dancers on various platforms as Spartans patrolled the floor.  It was more fun than watching the movie on the stadium's Jumbotron, even though it was a great idea.  Warner Bros sure knows how to throw a party and I was happy to attend, not just because of my Xbox360 sponsored goodie bag and cardboard Spartan shield.

Comments (2)