A Wrap-Up of the Latest Comic-Con News

There's a lot of news coming in about the San Diego Comic-Con (other than the news of crazy Twilighters ruining everyone's good times) so I figured that I would do a quick round-up of all of it for you all.

And here we go...

One of the biggest surprises of the Comic-Con so far has been the unveiling of a trailer for Wolverine by Hugh Jackman himself. Jackman even thanked the fans present at the panel for "giving him a career." He seems like a nice guy. Anyways, according to /Film's Adam Quigley, the trailer was full of geek-tastic images such as Wolverine and Sabertooth sharing a holding cell, shots of Deadpool (complete with ninja swords), Gambit (yes!) and The Blob. Basically, this sounds like a nerd's fantasy come true. Unfortunately, Mr. Quigley also said that most of the trailer came off in the cheesy kind of way. So, despite having a lot of fan favorites appear, this movie could still suck big time. I'm not sure that it could actually suck as much as X-Men: The Last Stand did... but hey, you never know. Here's hoping for the best... and we better have another beserker attack in this one... and Gambit better have a thick Cajun accent and throw glowing, purple cards. Seriously, that's all that character ever did. But, somehow, he was still awesome.

The Watchmen panel was also today and according to every site I've read it was pretty much awesome. Director Zack Synder and the entire cast were present and Synder unveiled a new extended trailer of the one that premiered in front of The Dark Knight last year. The trailer is supposed to be pretty awesome and has a lot more violence and gore than the last one did (which makes sense due to the fact that the Watchmen is an extremely violent graphic novel). Still, like the last trailer, it was mostly just flashy stuff and no dialogue or character pieces. All of this still makes me wary of Synder and his ability to make a strong, character driven film but, hopefully, he will prove me wrong. After reading all the Q & A of this panel, it at least seems his heart is in the right place. 

Eh, I'm just gripping. It will be good. Really, it will.

A new red band trailer for Lexi Alexander's Punisher: War Zone was released at the Comic-Con today and it looks just as God awful as the last trailer did. The last Punisher film with Thomas Jane was pretty awful but this looks a thousand times worse. "Oh, Look! We have Punisher smash everyone's heads in with his bare hands! That makes our movie better!" No... no, it doesn't. I know this may confuse some of you as I was just arguing for keeping R-rated series R-rated but that doesn't mean that just having extreme violence is going to make your film a good one. Violence should be there to make a point, commentary or serve the purpose of the story in some manner. The way it is being used in this trailer just makes the movie look retarded. And what's up with that lighting scheme? Did someone borrow the cinematographer from Batman and Robin? 

I've read a lot of Director Lexi Alexander's blog posts about how this movie is going to kick ass and how it's going to be so violent that we can't handle it. I don't like her. She seems about as mature as a twelve year old boy. 

And how about Ray Stevenson as the new Frank Castle? I don't buy him. I don't know why, but I just don't like the guy. The last Punisher was a terrible film but at least it had Thomas Jane doing a pretty good job as Frank Castle. It's a shame- I like Thomas Jane but he tends to be in nothing but pretty bad movies. 

At least John Travolta isn't the bad guy in this one. Thank God for that. Check out the head-explosion filled trailer above.

Some new images and posters of Rose McGowan in the Robert Rodriguez produced Red Sonja were also released at the Comic-Con. As you can see in the image above, they are pretty gorgeous and surreal pieces. I was surprised that Rodriguez was still involved in this film due to his break-up with McGowan a month or so ago. Oh well... at least he isn't directing it. In my opinion, this chick has really been holding the guy back in creative terms. After all, he hasn't done anything since Grindhouse but come close to remaking a bunch of old 1960's sci-fi films with McGowan to be in the lead role each time. Come on, Robert... give us Sin City 2, man. I'm drying here... 

Anyways, Douglas Aarnioko (Rodriguez' first assistant director on most of his projects) will been directing the film and will be using both green screen work and practical sets to create the film. One thing's for sure: the film will definitely look good. It's also rumored to have a very dark edge to it. I'm slightly interested but there's something about McGowan that bothers me. Maybe it's the fact that she's a home-wrecker. Yeah, that might be it...

A trailer was unveiled at the Wolfman panel today and I hear it was pretty incredible. Apparently, the trailer gave a look at Benicio Del Toro in full Wolfman make-up (done by the amazing Rick Baker of American Werewolf in London fame) and he looks awesome. The trailer was also full of werewolf mayhem as Benicio tore a lot of people up (complete with flying limbs and blood). I remember hearing that the screenplay by Andrew Walker (the man that wrote the screenplay of Seven) was extremely violent and this just confirms that. Still, I was slightly horrified to know that the creative team was still unsure if the film would be allowed to be rated R by Universal and that the werewolf transformation might be done by CGI rather than practical effects (you have Rick Baker aboard guys- use him! This man made werewolf transformations as real as they will ever get!). I'm also a little unsure of replacement director Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park III). I really wish Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) had stayed on this project... it really could have been something wild, creative and special under his directorial helm. 

Still, despite all this, I'm looking forward to this one. I love me some Wolfman!

There was also a surprise Tron 2 (or as they're calling it- Tr2n) trailer at the Disney panel the other day and it blew a lot of people away. Get this- it has better effects but is still retro and it has an old Jeff Bridges reprising his old role from the original film. Yeah, Jeff Bridges is back. Get excited. I've only seen the original Tron once on television but I remember throuoghly enjoying it. I'm all for this sequel. I'm sure it will be fun. That and I'm glad Bridges is involved.

Lastly, The Spirit panel was today and, from what I've read, it was pretty awful. The trailer that popped up last week (and was attached to my print of The Dark Knight) was shown along with some new clips that were equally unimpressive. I loved the teaser trailer for this film but that last trailer was just too strange / focused on women for my taste. I'm just not really sure where Miller's going with this film anymore. His focus seems very divided. Anyways, all the footage shown at the panel is supposed to be really cheesy and bad. The panel itself was also supposed to be pretty boring. 

Poor Frank Miller. I had high hopes for this one. I'm not going to lie to you- I'm still going to go see this movie. I'm just not very confident about the outcome of the film anymore. Still, I'll hope for the best. Frank, you know what you have to do about all this. Give us what we really want- give us Sin City 2! 

Well that's it for my latest Comic-Con news wrap up everyone. I hope that you all enjoyed it. I only wish that Jason and I could be there live to give you all this news live and in a more personal form than this report has been. Still, I tried to spice it up as well as I could. 

I try, folks. I try.

Sources: /Film , IGN, First Showing