Ahoy, squirts! Quint here to introduce our first report from a new reporter working Mark Millar's Kapow! Comic-Con in London, Adrian Hieatt. I was impressed with Hieatt's red carpet skills (you may remember his interview with Gary Oldman a few weeks ago where he got some good Dark Knight Rises info out of him) and asked if he'd like to look into this brand new Comic-Con in London, spear-headed by Kick-Ass' Mark Millar.
This is his first report covering the Duncan Jones/Wolverine bomb that was dropped at the Q&A this morning as well as some Moon-related goodies and, of course, some coverage of the big Green Lantern presentation. Look for more stories from Adrian over the weekend!
Good afternoon from across the pond. Adrian Hieatt here, I'm hanging out at the inaugural Kapow! Comic Con here in sunny London this weekend.
It's been a pretty amazing day so far (early afternoon here and I'm about to go into the Green Lantern panel) - and I'll post a full review of the day's goings-on tonight. First up though, I wanted to bring you a few bits of news from a Duncan Jones Q&A and signing that's just taken place at the convention.
May I say how nice a person Mr Jones is - taking plenty of time to talk to fans, still really humble and creative, and full of ideas, but not seeming willing to compromise on the way he likes to do things - despite the fact he must be getting offers of massive movies left, right and centre at the moment.
He was of course here to talk Source Code, which has just opened in the UK, but some inevitable other questions also popped up. Namely, Wolverine. Now that Aronofsky is off the project, Jones' name has been linked with the project more than once. He says he's been "talking about it" - there's no commitment yet but he revealed how much he loves the character - even more than Batman apparently. We also know that David Slade has been targetted to possibly direct too though. It's great to hear he's interesed - I'd personally love to see what the man behind Moon (and David Bowie's son of course) could do with everyone's favourite badass mutant.
Also in the Q&A, Jones revealed that some kind of sequel or prequel to Moon will eventually happen, but not as a movie - he hinted that it could be a game or some other kind of spin off. I'm thinking perhaps a comic? Duncan also said that he'd love to work on a video game in the future - but interestingly he'd prefer to do a smaller game app, not a full blown console epic.
THE GREEN LANTERN
Let me get straight to the description of what we actually saw. There were about 500 people in the room, and we were shown 3 separate pieces of Green Lantern related footage. First of all, there was the trailer for the computer game - it's likely you've seen this before, it's probably about a week old but hasn't been screened that widely yet. I must say, the graphics and attention to detail were pretty incredible, and it looks like they've captured the look of the film pretty much perfectly - however, considering the amount of CGI in the movie, perhaps that's not so surprising? But I was impressed with the modelling of Ryan Reynolds, his fuzzy hair in particular.
Next up was an entire feature length episode of the animated Green Lantern spin off, Emerald Knights - we were told this is the first time the footage has been shown, and it was top notch. Although we were in a packed room with no air conditioning, filled with sweaty comic book hunters, the 80 minute film did not drag at all, at least for me. Some brilliant, brilliant stories, based on existing comics, as far as I know (my favourite was 'Mogo Doesn't Socialise' - appropriate because I've seen Dave Gibbons on various panels today) featured as flashbacks to a new, original story. The whole thing was animated well, with very high production values on the sound, voice talent and script. Perhaps it was a bit too long to be shown all at once at a con like this, but it's always nice to get something exclusive.
Then, the main event. People clapped as the screen went dark again, and some Green Lantern music kicked in. However, the screen stayed dark, and a 'small technical hitch' led to a delay of 5 or 10 minutes. What eventually appeared was an 9 minute extended look at the first key scenes of the film: the initial death of Abin Sur, Hal getting the ring and trying to do the oath in his apartment, his arrival on Oa, And Sinestro talking to the assembled throng of Lanterns. After that was another short selection of clips, most of which we've already seen. I'm still not entirely sure if this is exactly the same footage that screened at Wondercon. It was great to see it, but maybe a bit disappointing that we didn't get something a little more extensive or fresh after all that waiting.
Personally, not being a big Green Lantern man, I haven't been that excited about the movie this summer. But seeing it all on the big screen has really changes my mind. I'm not one of those who got upset about the suit - and I think they've got it just right now - always glimmering, never static, very alien. The world it looks like they've created is of course going to do well with the kids especially, but you can't help but be blown away by the look of the whole thing. It's going to be totally nuts in 3D. I'm also still not 100% sure about Ryan Reynolds in the role, but it may not matter, if everything looks this good and they get the story right!
By the way, our phones and cameras were banned throughout, otherwise I would have grabbed a sneaky snap or two!
I'll post more from here in London soon.
Adrian Hieatt
