Warner Brothers Panel - San Diego Comic-Con 2007

Kicking off the day today was Warner Brothers with a bunch of updates on a lot of projects.

Get Smart
We were treated to a full length trailer which offers even more laughs than the teaser that's been in theaters lately. It shows more of the cast and gives us a taste of the physical comedy and action. Also we get to see a lot more of Anne Hathaway's character, Agent 99, previously only briefly seen in the teaser. The panel consisted of director Peter Segal, Steve Carell, The Rock, Masi Oka, Ken Davitian, and Nate Torrence. I was never into the old TV show, but if the trailer is any indication to how funny the movie will be, I'm really looking forward to it.

Invasion
There was a video intro from Nicole Kidman that was heavily edited as though she didn't really know what to say to us. Then they showed the trailer and it didn't change my mind a bit about this movie. I love this story. I've read the original book and seen both of the film adaptations. The story's been done and done well, and this attempt looks pretty poor, I think.

One Missed Call
They showed the trailer for this film, another Japanese horror movie remake a la The Ring and The Grudge. Due out next January, it's about an evil spirit that is transferred through cell phone waves and calls you with the sound of your death just before you die. Stars Ed Burns and Shannyn Sossamon talked about working on it and how the director asked them not to see the original material. Sossamon couldn't have been a worse public speaker- she was ditzy and had no answers to questions directed at her. She started playing with a chocolate wrapper halfway through the panel to avoid answering anything and turned to Ed Burns at one point and said, "I'm really screwing this up."

10,000 BC and Trick or Treat
They showed two trailers with no introduction, the first for 10,000 BC looked epic, with mammoths and saber tooths and cavemen, but didn't offer much story. It struck me as the sort of thing that would fade away quickly from the box office, but future information on this film could prove me wrong. The second, for Trick or Treat, looked to me like another uncreative Halloween horror movie, but I'm biased as horror movies make me jump and keep me awake at night.

Whiteout
The trailer for this latest graphic novel adaptation looks very eerie. The film is about a murder in Antarctica and stars Kate Beckinsale as the lead investigator. I've never felt very strongly either way about Beckinsale, but after seeing her on this panel, along with Joel Silver, director Domenic Sena, and writer Greg Rucka, I loved her rapport with the audience. She was very laid back, funny, answered all questions thoroughly, and seemed flattered that those asking questions kept referring to her as a "super hero" and an "action star."

Watchmen
Many comic book nerds like myself have long awaited the adaptation of this revolutionary graphic novel to the big screen and it looks like our day has finally come. Zack Snyder, director of 300, came out to talk about what has been going on in the early pre-production stage. Not a wonderful public speaker, but certainly passionate about the project- he told us that he will not succumb to the usual "pop-ish" marketing techniques that come hand in hand with super hero films. In turn, he also said that they have decided on an R rating for the film, one of the first of it's kind to be made like this. Both these facts came very well received from the audience, and if you can please fans at Comic-Con, that's saying a lot. Although the press had mostly scooped him on the casting of the film, he announced a lot of it anyways. Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian, Malin Akerman as Laurie, and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. The latter two joined the panel where they mostly talked about how they planned to do the source material justice and how they hoped that if Alan Moore ever sees it he wouldn't hate it too much.

Below are some pics from a few of the panels:

The Get Smart panel, from left to right: Nate Torrence (Studio 60), Masi Oka (Heroes), Ken Davitian (Borat), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Steve Carell, and director Peter Segal.