Comic-Con Movies 2011: ‘Seventh Son’ and ‘Paradise Lost’
Legendary Pictures didng't bring its "A game" to Comic-Con this year (that would be
The Dark Knight Rises or
Man of Steel), but it did bring a handful of projects barely out of the embryonic stage. Two of those films were the period fantasy
The Seventh Son starring Jeff Bridges and director Alex Proyas'
Paradise Lost starring Bradley Cooper and based on John Milton's epic.
As he usually does, "The Dude" stole most of the attention during the
The Seventh Son panel. He appeared with co-stars Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian of "Chronicles of Narnai) and newcomer Alicia Vikander. All the actors expressed that director Sergei Bodrov's work on
Mongol drew them to the project.
Bodrov stayed mum on the plot, but it's based off a young adult novel series that involves a witch hunter (Bridges) who takes up an apprentice (Barnes). He did reveal some concept art for the film, which looked particularly dark and consisted of a flaming headless horseman type.
Things moved quickly to
Paradise Lost. Proyas (
The Crow, Dark City) came on stage along with star Bradley Cooper. The following concept art was revealed (thanks to Cinema Blend).
Proyas said the scale of this film will be large and involve the Archangel Michael, Adam and Eve and Lucifer's fall from grace. Cooper told the audience that he put together an audition tape in his kitchen to make his pitch to play Lucifer and joked about the awkwardness of "the guy from
The Hangover playing Lucifer." Apparently their take on the character will be unlike anything we've seen before and they're most excited about that.
The story will be faithful to the source material, they say, but they're consciously trying to avoid the many visual depictions of it that have cropped up in art over the centuries. On a smaller scale, it will be about two brothers in an intimate "nuclear family" and that's how Cooper relates to it.
Cooper assured the audience that if you've seen
Dark City, you know why Proyas is the right man for the job. I'd have to agree.
