Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I've already posted stories about Spider-Man: Homecoming and Baby Driver and I'll be writing up my complicated thoughts on the very first Dark Tower footage when I wrap up with this one, but I figured it'd be cool to roll through some of the highlights from Sony's CinemaCon presentation.
Let's start with Blade Runner 2049 (which is Warner Bros here in the States but Sony internationally, hence it appearing in this presentation).
Ryan Gosling joined Tom Rothman on stage to introduce some footage from the movie. Rothman spent a good chunk of his stage time talking about seeing the original Blade Runner in 1982 and how it had a huge impact on him. He kept saying it was "Cool as shit."
Gosling said he didn't see the original until he was 13 or 14. "I saw everything that stole from it first," he said, but then when he saw the original it was a seminal movie for him that changed the way he viewed cinema.
The footage they showed began with original Blade Runner scenes. Lots of the cityscape shots, Batty dialogue over images of Harrison Ford and some of the more iconic shots from the first film. Then there was a shot from the 1982 movie of Harrison in profile lowering Deckard's very recognizable gun. Something shifts in the colors and the gun raises again except now it's in Gosling's hand.
You've seen the first trailer so you know that the look of the film is going to be pretty spectacular. This new footage showed a lot more of the geography on display, from cityscapes to more of that vast desert where Deckard seems to be hiding out (it's supposed to be Vegas, I think, which is appropriate considering where they showed this footage), and the thing that struck me the most was how much it was able to nod to Syd Mead's style from the original film without just giving us the same shit we've seen before.
One of the city locations was the LAPD building, a kind of mushroom shaped building with a flat top in dark, rainy LA. Inside was a stern-looking Robin Wright who seems to be playing Gosling's boss.
We got some heady sounding dialogue from Jared Leto's character, who seems to be creating replicants, about creating angels. He laments that he can only make so many as a naked woman, covered in some kind of goo, falls to the ground and he gently cradles her.
There was also a little more with Ford and Gosling with some action beats, one of which sees Ford throw one of his trademark punches at some fool.
All the elements were there. It feels right if that makes any sense.
One of the biggest surprises of the presentation was just how much fun the Jumanji reboot looked.
I know! I'm just as surprised as you are!
So the premise is that a group of mismatched teens are all in detention Breakfast Club style and are told to clean out the school's basement. There's a geek, a jock, a weird girl and a popular girl.
While cleaning they come across an old video game system, plug it into an old TV and it's a SNES style 16-bit game. They each pick a character based only on a name and when they do they get sucked into the game.
So, instead of a board game they're going more Tron, but the funny thing is that these people picked one of four playable characters and those characters are their avatars in this new game world. The geek is Dwayne Johnson, the jock is Kevin Hart (a character named Moose Finbar, who he picked because he thought the name sounded cool), the weird girl is half-naked Karen Gillan and the popular girl is, of course, Jack Black.
The movie looked big and funny, a great excuse for every one of the four leads to play different kinds of characters than they usually do. I mean, imagine being the nerd who suddenly gets to be Dwayne Johnson.
We're told the rules a bit, thanks to Rhys Darby who pops in to run down what's going on for the characters (he also name checks Alan Parrish, Robin Williams' character from the original movie, FYI). There are many levels and they each have special skills that compliment teamwork that can get them to the end, but they have to be careful because they only have 3 lives.
We see one of those lives lost as Jack Black's character gives a big speech while standing on the water's edge and a hungry hippo comes up and gobbles him up. It's a bit Deep Blue Sea, but it works.
Johnson bouncing off Hart (who is super pissed off that he's a little dude whose special power is carrying all the other character's weapons), Gillan and Black was a joy to watch even in these tiny truncated moments.
Yeah, the movie looks cartoony (so did the original), but goddamn if it didn't look fun as hell. Smart concept, big dumb fun action with characters acknowledging the absurdity at just the right moments.
This footage took the movie from a "really, they're doing this?" to a "okay, fuck yes I'm seeing a Jumanji remake!" Trust me, I'm just as shocked as you are.
Another surprisingly good looking thing they showed at the Sony panel was some footage from the Flatliners reboot starring Ellen Page. You know the premise of the original. A bunch of medical students flatline themselves and bring each other back so they can experience the afterlife and rush of near-death experiences... but doing that opens a door that shouldn't be open and freaky shit starts happening.
Same stuff, different group, but I can tell you that it looked freaky and goose-pimply surreal. Who knows what the final product is going to be like, but Page was super invested in the premise and sold a whole lot of the freakier elements.
Another interesting genre picture they highlighted was a movie that was not at all on my radar from Screen Gems called Cadaver starring Pretty Little Liars' Shay Mitchell all set in a morgue as the body of a woman half burned and brutally slashed comes in late one night and doesn't seem to be as restful as the rest of Mitchell's patients.
If you saw The Autopsy of Jane Doe you'll recognize some similarities, but this one looks to be taking the premise in a more early 2000s J-horror influenced direction. The body itself was a gruesome practical effect that is all the more impressive when she starts moving.
Very interested in this one.
Okay, so I got a lot of stuff to say about Dark Tower, so I'm gonna go start that, which should wrap up my Sony CinemaCon coverage for the night. Stay tuned!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
