Hey folks, Harry here with a report from the LA CONVENTION that was thrown this weekend. News from Guillermo Del Toro, Dean Devlin and Sam Raimi... Pretty uber-cool if ya ask me. Bigger part for Bruce Campbell sounds like a great idea for Spider-Man 2. I mean, had he had a bigger part in SPIDER-MAN, maybe it would've made some real money!
Hey Harry,
I just got back from the LA comic con, and got not one, not two, but three great Q&A's
First: Guillermo del Toro. He talked for about a half hour, and this guy kicks ass big time. He talked about hellboy, and I dont know if you know this already, but Rick Baker is set to do the makeup for hellboy. Also, most of the filming is going to be shot in Europe. He said that the movie will be about 95% true to the comic and there will be a lot of ass womping between hellboy and other creatures.
He then briefly talked on Mountain of Maddness and said that he plans to shot a staight up, kick ass horror film set in the day light, and a lot of snow, and snow storms. Sounds sweet.
After a Eight Legged Freaks spot, which new footage was shown, mostly of the spiders when they frist attack the town. There was a lot of heat on Dean Devlin when any one mentioned Godzilla, lots of boo's. But he took it like a sport, and from what i saw from the footage of ELF, this should ease the pain left from Godzilla.
Finally, for the first time ever, i got to meet Sam "the man" Raimi. He couldnt spill anything on Spidey 2, but that he's working on getting Bruce Campbell a much bigger part, if the studio lets him. Basicly there was a huge pop for Raimi and he thanked all the fans for going out and seeing spidey this weekend.
Well thats all, thanks for letting me drop a line.
SILENTMALLRAT.
Then we had this report from the Wicker Man...
Hey Harry,
Wicker Man here. It's been a long time since I wrote in but I thought I would send in my take on today's Sci-Fi Convention here in L.A. The panel was comprised of the "Spider-Man" panel (Sam Raimi, Laura Ziskin, and Avi Arad), "Eight-Legged Freaks" panel (Dean Devlin, David Arquette, Karu Wurher, and the director among others (whose names escape me at the moment), and Guillermo del Toro.
Overall, it was a great convention. Now you would think that Raimi and co. would be the highlight of the con, but no. It was a dead heat, but ultimately, it was del Toro who stole the show (even though, no matter how hard he tried, the moderator could not correctly say "Guillermo"). del Toro is as giving with his time as he is with his information. He treated the fans to a whirlwind of kickass discussion and signed autographs for nearly two hours! Having not seen any televised interviews with del Toro before (that's what happens when you have to live without cable), I was impressed with his candid observations about the deficiencies of studio filmmaking. Luckily, like Raimi, he has a craftsman approach to making movies and therefore chooses to critique things from the foundation of having a body of film work. He talked about what most people who read this site know, Perlman as "Hellboy", and making "Wind in the Willows". He really made the day a blast. He has much love for fans and they seem to love him back.
Next up, the "Eight-Legged Freaks" panel came on, and they showed some clips and the trailer and generally had a blast with themselves. They played along with the campiness of the movie's subject and it looks like this will either be a goofy, fun movie or this year's version of "Bats". Someone asked Arquette a 1-800 ATT question, I shit you not, and Devlin even made some jokes about "Godzilla" which were rather amusing.
Last, but not least, we had (**cue Spider-Man theme**) Raimi and the Spidey team. The Q&A lasted a little over a half-hour and all three panelists were gracious listeners and tried to answer all questions asked in a polite manner. Much like del Toro, they all clearly had a love of the comic and hoped they had done "Spider-Man" justice in the eyes of the fans. Arad and Raimi took turns deflecting onto one another a few inflammatory questions (such as one from a ticked individual who wasn't satisified by the *numerous* answers in print as to why organic webshooters were used in place of the comic's original mechanical webshooters). Yet, through it all, Raimi seems to be a little like Spider-Man himself, humble, friendly, tapped for greatness, unsure of why or how he came to receive that task, and resolved to helping the world a little bit through the effort. I think Raimi was the only guy in a suit at the whole convention, but it just tells you that he goes the extra mile.
The signing unfortunately was handled poorly (it's not the first time at these cons). Raimi was ready to sign posters and things for *everyone* who had stuck around during the signing, which lasted over an hour. Sam Raimi is a true gentleman. After signing hundreds of autographs, he decided to finish out the stack of posters for all the fans who wanted one, but the event staff cut him off and sort of whisked him from the table. Through no fault of Raimi's, I watched as probably a measly ten people who were left walked away empty-handed and visibly upset without even so much as getting one of the posters sitting on the panelists' table. It doesn't take much to make a fan happy, and it was a shame that certain staffers had to ruin the mood for those few people.
All in all, a great convention filled with some master filmmakers. It's certainly a golden age for anyone who loves movies and comics. That's all I got.
Another hot time in the old town tonight...
--The Wicker Man--
