Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another ShoWest report. I just attended the big Lionsgate luncheon. I showed up to the "greenroom" beforehand with the promise of a one on one interview with James Mangold regarding 3:10 TO YUMA.
These things always weird me out. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. There was a press line, which I declined, and past that a little reception room where the bar and some standing tables were. I grabbed a bottle of water... it is Vegas and you have to keep hydrated, afterall, and hung back as much as I could. The room was filled with executives, many very nice, and then started to fill up with celebrities after they walked through the line.
Last year I had a similar experience when I interviewed Brandon Routh. Lots of Vegas elite and executives... then me. I had some like minded compatriots in the Zboneman.com crew, but they were grabbing interviews on the line, so it was mostly just me watching Jason Statham, Larry the Cable Guy, William Friedkin, Eli Roth and Stone Cold walk in and rub shoulders with the bigger time distributors and Lionsgate execs.
I was worried about missing the presentation/luncheon. The time was creeping up and still no sign of Mangold or Melody, the PR lady I've been talking with to set up this interview.
With about 15 minutes to go before the luncheon was supposed to start, I finally got a chance to speak with James Mangold and his producer and wife Cathy Konrad. It's a good interview. I'll work on it tonight and hopefully have it ready tomorrow. I also nabbed about 5 minutes with Tobin Bell and had a conversation about Jigsaw as a character and his progression through the films... and quite a bit of discussion about SAW IV.
I was sure I was late at this point, but I headed to the hall. There was still a line to get into the giant ballroom, so good. They hadn't started. But I got up to the front of the line and was once again denied access because I didn't have a ShoWest passport. I called up the Lionsgate people who confirmed I had a seat and was able to sneak in through a side door, following all the big names. The problem was I didn't know which table, of the maybe 200-300 tables in the place.
I ended up having a seat at the very, very front... Well, "Harry Knowles" had a seat at the very front, but upon hearing he wasn't in Las Vegas, the lovely people at Lionsgate told me to sit. I was at the table with Mangold, his wife, a guy from Variety and William Friedkin. I was sandwiched in-between Eli Roth and the president of the Hollywood Foreign Press.
Here are the tidbits and footage rundowns from the 2 hour presentation.
Tobin Bell gave the SAW producers a ShoWest award and announced that production on SAW IV begins April 16th.
The producers accepted the award and announced that, although they can't say how, Bell will be back for SAW IV and SAW 5. I have some theories that I ran by Bell in the interview and he really responded to them, but said he hasn't read the script yet, so he doesn't know anything.
Diana Ross' kid showed up and showed a music video for PRIDE, very African... you know, LION KING-ish, with lots of footage of Terrence Howard crying and men in speedos.
Then Stone Cold Steve Austin came out to introduce a clip of THE CONDEMNED, which looks to be THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME/RUNNING MAN/BATTLE ROYALE, but with big brute men beating the shit out of each other. The scene he showed was him fighting with a big dude, about a foot taller. "If you stay down, we don't have a problem," he says and the dude stands up, towering over him. "We have a big fuckin' problem."
They fight and fight dirty, as they cut back to people in a control room, like you see at the Oscars or big news shows or talk shows sometimes, as they watch the fight. Welcome to the Jungle plays on the soundtrack.
The dudes tumble down a hill, going past some line that causes the big dude's ankle device to go from green to red and beep a warning. Stone Cold kicks the dude off him and over a cliff. He falls about 30 feet before his ankle device blows, leaving a giant fireball where his body was.
Looks retarded. Fun, though. Retarded fun.
William Friedkin showed the trailer for BUG and pleaded to the theater owners to stand against the shortening window between theatrical release and DVD/cable/internet. He says that the theater business is still strong and people still WANT to see movies in a theater, the best way to watch movies, and that the ideas of day and date release for internet/pay TV needs to be fought.
Then Eli Roth came out and gave a little talk before showing the HOSTEL 2 clip that played at NYCC and the SXSW horror panel.
Then Dane Cook was given some award, but before he came up on stage to accept (and present the trailer for GOOD LUCK CHUCK) they had a video'd intro by Jessica Alba from the set of THE EYE. She looks weird as a red-head. not bad, but different.
Anyway, she was kind of loopy, cracked some really corny jokes, but admitted they were lame and corny, but very sweetly expressed her love for Cook, then he took the stage. He said that Alba was high in the intro. That got quite a big laugh, then he said, "What can I say? She gets very good weed."
Then he showed the trailer for GOOD LUCK CHUCK.
I didn't really like it. It had some laughs, but the kind that you are a little embarrassed for laughing at. It's about a guy who has an incredible sex streak. He can have sex with any girl he wants, but his curse is that every single girl he sleeps with goes on to love and marriage on the very next man. He's fine with that until he falls for a girl, Alba, who throws herself at him, but he refuses to seal the deal, afraid that this curse is real and if he does have sex with her, she'll dump him and marry.
The best shot of the trailer is Alba getting out of a car and her skirt getting caught in the door, ripping from her body, leaving her standing there in her tighty-whities. The big gag of the trailer was Cook trying to break the curse, or at the very least test it, by sleeping with the most hideous woman he can find. So, of course, he goes to a pool and sees a whale of a woman sunbathing. He takes her to dinner and gags as she talks about what kind of sex she's going to give to him.
Next they paraded Jason Statham out to introduce the trailer for WAR, a flick about a rogue assassin (Jet Li) who kills anyone he needs to. Li played it silent. Very little martial arts from him, but lots of gunplay. He kills a family... and Jason Statham goes after him. I think it was his partner and his family that were killed. Statham is an FBI agent and goes after Li "to get revenge" as the voice-over told me between the quick cuts of Statham fighting groups of Asian men and having shoot-outs with Jet Li. It was a little typical, but it looked pretty fun.
James Mangold came out to introduce a 5 minute clip of 3:10 TO YUMA, the remake of the classic, but very underseen, film starring Van Heflin and Glenn Ford, which is itself based on an Elmore Leonard story. This flick stars Christian Bale and Russell Crowe... the basic set-up is that Crowe is an outlaw, Bale is an average guy who is part of a group holding Crowe as they await the 3:10 TO YUMA, where Crowe will be hanged.
The footage starts as Crowe's posse rides into town looking for him. They were obviously tipped off to where is, a second floor hotel room. Crowe looks very much like he did in THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, with his hair long. He's surrounded by a couple of the local law enforcers, a man from the train company and Bale and his son.
The leader of the posse calls for Crowe's character. "Boss! Boss!" Crowe turns to Bale, whose face is bloody, by the way. "What do you want me to tell him?" "Tell him you'll write him a letter every day from Yuma."
Bale and the rest of the captors keep out of sight as Crowe goes to the window. Casually, he calls down to his group. "Boys. Charlie... why don't you take the boys down to the saloon and buy 'em a drink. I'll be down shortly." Charlie responds, "You okay?" "I'm fine. Just sittin' up here with my four new friends..."
Bale leans forward with his shotgun. Crowe gives him a humored glance. Charlie throws up a hat to Crowe, who catches it, his iron cuffs apparent. He slides the hat on and plops back down on the bed, smiling.
Charlie calls out to the townspeople. "Listen up! It's Ben Wade they have up there. Now, the railroad intends to put him on the 3:10 to Yuma and hang 'im. We're going to give two hundred cash dollars to any man who shoots any one of his captors." He holds up the bills so everyone can see.
"Two hundred dollars, guaranteed." Suddenly the town comes alive. Lots of "Hell, I'll do it"s echo down the street as a few dozen people join the posse, their weapons at the ready. Every type, from old men with rifles and women wearing gunbelts.
Crowe smiles. The sheriff's eyes are wide. "There's gotta be more than 41 guns down there now." The sheriff gives up. He says he's going to leave. "There's only 5 of us." He'd fight if it was a fair fight, but he's not going to die there, he says.
So he leaves, the railroad guy follows him and his deputy down the stairs, begging them to stay. The sheriff says he has a family, so no deal. "I have a family, too." "Then you ought to come with us."
The posse, still on horseback, are lined up in front of the hotel's door. The law holds up their pistols and their arms.
Back with Bale and Crowe. Crowe tells Bale he should leave, save the life of his boy, in his mid-teens maybe.
Back to the sheriff and his deputy. They're outside, hands up. The posse, of course, opens fire, tearing them down. Charlie yells back up to Crowe. "That all of 'em?" Crowe looks to Bale, who still has his gun trained on Crowe. "Almost..." He turns fully to Bale. "Your move, Jim."
The flick looked fantastic. Great looking Western, with Crowe being so carefree and Bale being so troubled... gonna be a great dynamic.
The final bit of the Lionsgate presentation had Larry the Cable Guy come out. I thought he was going to introduce his movie, DELTA FARCE, but he did more than that. He ended up going through a 25-30 minute stand-up routine. I'm a little embarrassed to say I laughed quite a bit, which is odd because I never found him that funny in his TV stuff.
But he finally got to the movie and they screened a scene where Keith David, playing a superior officer, comes into the barracks and tells The Cable Guy that he's no longer a weekend warrior, but fully enlisted. Lots of yelling and intensity from David, of course and dumbfounded looks on the rednecks in the place.
That was about it from the Lionsgate presentation. The 3:10 TO YUMA stuff was great, by far my favorite footage. Can't wait to see that one.
I took some pictures during the presentation and afterwards, of the banners they hung. I've had trouble with the FTP, but hopefully they were there when you read the article. If not, check back soon.
Got a big HAIRSPRAY presentation in a few hours and then I hope to sneak in to watch HOT FUZZ again. Will have another report by morning! Before I go, check out this shot from yesterday's Red Carpet event where THE SIMPSONS MOVIE had a sweet set-up!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
