San Diego Comic Con 09: Film Round Up

Hey guys,

As I am sure you are all aware, San Diego Comic Con 2009 has come to a close now so I thought I would wrap up the gaming, comic and entertainment news. I am breaking it down into four separate posts and the first one is going to be film, check out the comic, gaming and TV ones once they are live (I will add links).

OK so most exciting thing to come out of SDCC:09 for me in this category? Tron Legacy!

Tron Legacy

We all knew Tron 2 was coming but the Disney panel announced a rebrand to “Tron Legacy” as well as a teaser trailer that makes it look awesome.

Sorry it’s not YouTube iPhoners but for some retarded reason Disney have requested that be removed.

The trailer is pretty awesome though and it really makes me want to revisit the world of Tron. It’s a film that played a big part of my childhood and helped nudge gaming into a more accepted level, especially in family life so bringing Tron back with all this fancy SFX? Gonna rule. Jeff Bridges returns as well and the film will be about his son (Garrett Hedlund) investigating his fathers disappearance and ending up inside the Tron-verse. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a Sora (Kingdom Hearts) cameo but we know it won’t happen.

A Christmas Carol

Jim Carey and CGI movie veteran Robert Zemeckis will be hitting out with a new CGI version of  the classic Christmas story but initial feelings seem that it will be a darker affair than the Muppet and Bill Murray takes.

Apparently the bigger news regarding this one is the epic level of detail that has gone into emotional capture with actors wearing special headsets that capture facial textures and even eye movements.

Apparently the open of the film was shown at CC and entailed Scrooge attending Marley’s funeral during which he takes the coins of his eyes before the casket is closed. Not one too focused on kids then!

Seems like it is going to be a really interesting one and looking at some of the graphics on Polar Express and Monster House we can only assume that he is getting better, Beowulf was kind of crap but the graphics were very good.

Alice in Wonderland

We are pretty big Tim Burton fans in the Diablos house so we have been following progress on this one for a while. Well SDCC treated us to a very nice teaser featuring a glimpse of most of the cast and an already cool voice over from Depp. Look out for a) Depp looking scary and funny at the same time b) Scary Cat! c) Alice looking cool, totally different idea on the costume for once.

I am really excited about this one, not too much to say for now that I ain’t mention already but definitely looking forward to it. One small fact is that Burton is apparently merging all the Wonderland fiction (both books and poems like the Jabberywocky) into the film. Good stuff.

Avatar

Let’s be honest, we are all expecting big things from this one. Cameron is a big name in our kind of films and he has been focusing on the development and tech behind this film for a long time and has additionally spent a fuck load of cash pretty much inventing 3D cinema technology to do what he wants.

There is no direct footage available yet but plot details indicate that it will be indeed set on an alien planet where humans control biological copies of aliens called Na’vi which look like big blue cats with frog skin (sorry that’s my best attempt at describing them).

The footage shown at the event was apparently awesome so roll on the UK release!

Kick Ass

Yay more info on turning one of the coolest comics for a while into a film! Kick Ass has been looking good since we saw initial shots and it appears that the guys and gals lucky enough to attend SDCC got some scenes from the movie.

Apparently the footage reflected the comic really well and everyone seems like they are going to fit their roles well, apparently Nick Cage and Chloe Moretz are looking awesome as Big Daddy and hit girl and the picture here shows you how great (or lame which is kind of the point) Kick Ass himself looks.

I’m going to be really interested to see how violent the film actually turns out being as well as the final certificate.

Iron Man 2

We were all surprised at just how good Iron Man was, I mean we expected a decent action movie but it was funny, had awesome effects, gave us Mr. Samuel L Jackson as Fury and even managed to make Pepper Potts likeable. I am pretty psyched about Iron Man 2 and the feedback from CC was that the sneak peak was pretty good.

Apparently the footage saw plenty of involvement and witty banter between Stark and Fury (with more hints at the Avengers team up) and a suitably over the top equipped War Machine. The casting choices for the additional new characters (Rourke as Whiplash and Johansson as Black Widow) seem pretty cool so all expectations are set to 10 for this one!

Entertainment Weekly featured a shot of the main cast recently, on the left here, all 3 of them are looking good.

The Rest

Plenty of other things went out at CC, more shots from ZombieLand which is looking to be great. If you haven’t already heard it’s kind of like an American Shaun of the Dead. There was some pretty stunning footage from “Where the Wild Things Are”, a real life/CGI fantasy story which I don’t actually know much about but looks really cool as well as some lower key announcements about stuff from the Nightmare on Elm Street remake (yawn) and whatever the next bullshit Twilight film is, apparently these morons ruined CC.