I started off my panels at Comic-con with the Fox panel which promised both Keanu Reeves and Mark Wahlberg, and then threw a cherry on top with a surprise visit from Hugh Jackman! Keep reading for a rundown of the 20th Century Fox Panel.

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Director Scott Derickson came out with cast members Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. Keanu talked about what it’s like to play an emotionless alien (heh) and Derickson talked about modifying, but still doing justice to the original 1951 film. They assured us that there would be a Gort (though there previously hadn’t been a sign of him in the released footage), but they had taken liberties in updating the space ship. To be honest I can’t get on board with this film. The original is a classic and there was more violence in the three clips they showed during the panel than the entire original film.

Max Payne
This movie looks like it’ll be this year’s Shoot Em Up. It’s got intense and stunning action, but with a little tongue in cheek. I’m not quite sure where the demons fit in (I guess I didn’t get that far in the video game), but Mila Kunis is hot and Mark Wahlberg makes an awesome Max Payne. The film looks like it’s shot very uniquely and they mentioned that they were implementing technology of a new-to-the-industry slow motion camera called Phantom to recreate the “bullet time” of the video game. Mark Whalberg, Mila Kunis and Ludacris were all there to talk about the film. Whalberg was really funny, but was also majorly into the self promotion. I think he mentioned every single film he’s been in during that panel throughout different stories and references.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Everyone was getting up to leave the panel when…surprise! Hugh Jackman came bounding out onto the stage saying he literally just stepped off a plane from Australia. They’d just wrapped Wolverine, and he’d walked off the set with a handful of footage and hopped on a flight to Comic-con. Before he showed it, Jackman hopped off the stage, high fiving the crowd as he made his way through to shake the hand of Len Wein, creator of Wolverine, for starting his career. Jackman seems so humble, gracious, and like an all around awesome guy. He was so enthusiastic about the film and he really built the crowd up. Then he showed some amazing footage that gave us a great look at the Wolverine/Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber) relationship, as well as a glimpse of other mutants in the flick such as the Blob, Deadpool, and Gambit. The crowd went absolutely nuts for it.

At this years San Diego Comic-Con, Summit Entertainment showcased three upcoming films in their panel; Push, Knowing and the highly anticipated Twilight. Keep reading to find out what was revealed.

Push

They started off their panel with a trailer for a film called Push, about those with super powers that live amongst us. They brought out cast members Chris Evans, Camille Bella, and Djimon Honsou, plus director Le to talk about the film and show some more clips. Poor little Dakota Fanning was stuck in a massive traffic jam on the I-5 and couldn’t make it to the panel, but in the first clip we were all able to see how much she’s grown up in an action sequence with herself and Chris Evans running from the villains of the film. She plays a “watcher” (those that can see the future), while Evans plays a “mover” (telekenetic) and Camille Bella and Djimon Honsou are “pushers” (those who can put thoughts into others heads). The problem with this film was that Comic-con should be its target audience, yet the crowd didn’t seem too enthused, myself included.

Knowing

Here’s the next Nic Cage flop a la Next, amongst others. The concept is actually pretty spooky: a code is unearthed through a school time capsule that predicts every disaster and the death toll that will accompany it. These disasters seem to follow Nic Cage around as he goes crazy cracking the code. They showed the trailer and the director came out to discuss it a bit, but all in all it looked pretty forgettable.

Twilight

I didn’t know what a “Twilighter” was until a few weeks ago when I read an article in Entertainment Weekly. Despite this, there was no amount of reading that I could have done to prepare me for this panel. I had seen young girls in “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” t-shirts standing in line that morning (and the night before for that matter), but the deafening screams that came from the crowd when this came onto the screen were absolutely insane:

I’ve had Twilight sitting on my bookshelf for a few months now and have been putting off reading it until the movie gets closer. I knew it was popular, and it seems like I’ll love it, but I had no idea that there was such a gigantic following of young girls. This was something Comic-con has never seen before. The girl to guy ratio at this panel was at least 5:1. The Q&A attracted shaking 12 year olds walking up to the mic and professing their love for Stephanie Meyer and the hunky Robert Pattinson who plays the impossibly beautiful vampire Edward. The panel consisted of director Catherine Hardwick, author Stephanie Meyer, and actors Kristen Stewart (Bella), Robert Pattinson (Edward), Cam Gigandet (James), Rachelle Lefevre (Victoria), Edi Gathegi (Laurent), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob). Every time Robert Pattinson came on the screen, tried to speak, or was addressed, the crowd erupted in girlish screams and shrieks. The poor guy couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He was a far cry from Cedric Diggory, with his spiky gelled hair, seriously fanglike teeth (which is funny because supposedly Twilight’s vampires don’t have fangs), and spacey attitude. Kristen Stewart was cute, punky, and incredibly nervous and intimidated by the crowd. They showed a clip of a fight sequence between Edward and James with Bella and it looked incredible. It looks like this film will both please the fans and be easy for the non readers to watch as well.

Just before the panel ended, the mod announced that someone just wanted to say hello. Little (or not so little anymore) Dakota Fanning came out and graciously thanked the audience for coming to see the Push panel and apologized profusely for being stuck in traffic and not being able to attend the panel. She was such a cutie.

I’m assuming everyone’s seen this and if you haven’t, you should watch it at least 3 times. Watchmen is more than just a graphic novel, it changed the face of comics by proving that something mind blowing, intelligent, and meaningful can come out of the medium. Until Watchmen, the general population assumed comic books were for children; exclusive to tales of super heroes and monsters. Then Alan Moore came along with his critically acclaimed, award winning graphic novel that changed everything.

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