About 20 years ago I worked with a guy who worked part time at a comic book shop and he was telling me about this convention he went to in California called “Comic Con”. It was about comic books and he told me that people from a film actually came to the show. They were from the 1989 film BATMAN. I don’t think it was Tim Burton or Michael Keaton but more like one of the production team. He talked about how they showed some concept art and some story-boards from the film that really didn’t show a lot but it was really exciting that movie people actually came to see the fans at a comic book convention.
Boy, have things changed.
Comic-Con has become a place to bring all your cast and crew and promote the living hell out of something thinking that doing so will make your project a hit with the geek crowd. It’s worked for some films and some of the films they pulled out all the punches for failed miserably. I cannot remember the last time a film showed up at Comic Con that had zero buzz and the appearance at Comic Con produced the excitement and anticipation the studios seem to think just showing up will give them.
Anymore it’s pretty rare that anyone surprises the fans at Comic-Con and I don’t expect this year to be any different.
This year it looks like one of the major events will be the Warner Brothers Panel. This list of films guarantees this is going to probably be THE panel to try and find a seat at:
Green Lantern, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and a film a lot of people might not have heard about yet: Sucker Punch from Zack Snyder. It’s being described as “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns”.
Warner will also promote the unnecessary remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN called Let Me In.
Also on the schedule is talk about PAUL. A film that partially takes place at Comic Con but more importantly stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
The other major players at the Con will be Marvel with the double strike of CAPTAIN AMERICA and THOR. I’m sure they will trot out the cast of Captain America and show some drawings and wave their hands around while talking about how great the film will be and not say anything people haven’t already heard.
Thor’s presentation might hold the hope of footage and prehaps even a visit from Kenneth Branagh.
There will unfortunately be some promotion for THE AVENGERS. A film I still say will not work and will be a mess despite Joss Whedon directing. Mark my words, they will try and put too many heros into this and it will self-destruct under the weight.
There will be a pile of television shows there trying to get some buzz going. One that sticks out is a remake of the remake of Le Femme Nikita from the CW called NIKITA. The good news is that it stars Maggie Q, the bad news is that it’s being made and made for The CW. The buzz I’ve seen about it has been less the exciting.
But I have hope that the event of the show will be the event that caught my eye the most from the last two years:
TRON LEGACY.
The people involved did a great job of surprising the hell out of the people the last two years and I think they’ll be working hard to keep up the effort.
Over the next couple of days there will be a HUGE amount of converage of the show and “events” and I’ll cover a few things that are really big but I’ll let pass most of the “news” coming out of the show since it’s everywhere and most of the time it’s just pictures of “Angelina Jolie talking” and “Angelina Jolie laughing”.
Let’s hope someone surprises us.
I really hoped to be there this year, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be……..next year, on the other hand…already making plans.