Friday, July 22 will likely be the most exciting day of the Comic-Con 2011 convention featuring The Adventures of Tintin,
the exciting motion-capture animated film from Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg, who will in fact make his first Comic-Con appearance ever, ends with a Sony panel that includes The Amazing Spider-Man and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
Comic-Con presents its yearly tradition, the Entertainment Weekly Visionaries panel. This year’s panel includes Jon Favreau (Iron Man) and Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy). Both directors hit it off quickly establishing with the Comic-Con audience that they not only knew each other but had plenty in common professionally. In particular, both men will soon adapt Disney-related properties into film. Favreau was a bit more forthcoming about his latest mash-up project while del Toro kept rather mum about Pacific Rim.
The first and perhaps biggest bit of news to come out of Thursday evening’s Quick Draw Productions panel with Robert Rodriguez was a new Heavy Metal film, but that wasn’t the only thing worth noting, especially for fans of Rodriguez’s comic book/noir classic, Sin City.
One of the biggest pieces of news from Thursday evening’s Quick Draw Production panel with Robert Rodriguez is the announcement that they will be making a new Heavy Metal movie. After shuffling around Hollywood for years, even being in the hands of David Fincher for a bit, Kevin Eastman now owns the rights to Heavy Metal, and with the help of Rodriguez, he’s bringing it to the big screen.
Just two weeks before his film opens, director Rupert Wyatt was on hand in Hall H Thursday evening during the 20th Century Fox panel to show a great deal of supposedly great footage from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Joined by Andy Serkis, who plays the ape Caesar in the film, Wyatt introduced fans to a number of scenes previously unseen.
Andrew Niccol joined Fox panel moderator Damon Lindelof, as well as his film’s stars, Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, to discuss In Time, a mystery for most in attendance. The film takes place in a world where humans stop aging around 25, so in order to extend their lives, they must “earn or steal time.”
Ridley Scott silenced any doubters Thursday in Hall H regarding his next film, Prometheus. Although details of the plot are still under wraps, Prometheus, which may or may not be a prequel of sorts to Alien, is scheduled for release on June 8, 2012. It stars Rapace, Theron, Michael Fassbender and according to Scott, it “has the DNA of the original Alien.”
Hugh Jackman showed up unexpectedly (or expectedly, depending on how you look at it) near Comic-Con this morning to help promote his upcoming film Real Steel, which (most unexpectedly) doesn’t have a panel. In a Q&A, he revealed some details about what he called “Wolverine 2,” including when he’ll shoot the film and who his nemesis will be.
Having expertly distributed sleeper hits like the horror flick Insidious and inspirational Soul Surfer, FilmDistrict came onto the scene this past year as a distributing force to be reckoned with. This year they come with not one but two highly anticipated features: Guillermo Del Toro-produced horror feature Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and the Cannes Award-winning action flick Drive.
Aardman Animation is best known for “Wallace and Gromit,” the beloved stop-motion family films. Their two upcoming features,Pirates! Band of Misfits and Arthur Christmas have two different animation styles, traditional stop-motion that Aardman is famous for and more “traditional” CGI animation.
