Comic-Con (Saturday, July 28)

So my second day at Comic-Con ran much more smoothly than the first, but there were mucho mucho gente everywhere. I drove to Old Town and took the trolley downtown to avoid both the masses and the high parking fees. Luckily when I arrived at the convention center at 9:30 a.m., Hall H was open and not nearly as full as I feared. I managed to get a pretty good seat toward the front and prepared myself for a long day inside the huge hall. I had my Entertainment Weekly and a plethora of snacks to keep me busy during the breaks between each panel.

First up was The Simpsons, to promote both the show and movie. There were mostly writers there, including creator Matt Groening, and Yeardley Smith, who voices Lisa. As imagined, the group was very funny and sharp with every question thrown their way. They showed a funny deleted scene from the movie and promised that if you hated the clip, then you’d love the movie. Aside from singing “Spider-Pig” for everybody, the discussion mostly remained on the series, which is going into its 19th season. There will be an episode about Ralph Wiggum being a presidential candidate in the ‘08 election, as well as more from Sideshow Bob. They also whetted our appetites by showing a clip from the upcoming Treehouse of Horror episode.

The men behind Reno 911! came out to promote their kung-fu ping-pong inspired comedy, Balls of Fury. Tom Lennon, who is most famously known as Lt. Dangle, came out in his ping-pong attire (a very tight spandex unitard) from the film. Star Dan Fogler was also there. The three of them mostly kept joking around with each other, but it was quite entertaining when they all ogled over a girl dressed as Princess Leia (the golden bikini from ‘Jedi’) who was trying to ask them a question. The guys also talked about working with Christopher Walken (Fogler does quite a good impression) and how he likes to pull pranks on the cast and crew, such as telling everyone it’s his birthday. Apparently he told people it was his birthday three different days during the shoot.

To promote their new “horror” movie, The Stranger, stars Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler (her first convention ever) stopped by with first-time director Bryan Bertino, all of which were really nervous. The clips weren’t very frightening, and you could tell people didn’t really know what to ask, so most of the questions were posed toward Liv and her role in Lord of the Rings.

The production crew (including LotR alum Richard Taylor!) behind the Narnia series came out to show some exclusive clips from the second installment, Prince Caspian. Speaking of the prince, casting sure did a good job of finding a charming and handsome young lad to play the role. Via satellite from Prague, the prince himself, Ben Barnes, and director Andrew Adamson talked a bit about the film, but couldn’t chat too long as the time difference made it their bedtime, although they joked that Ben was really just going to hit up the clubs. But I bet he really was.

To prove that Pixar knows how to do things right, writer and director, Andrew Stanton, came to discuss the next Pixar film, Wall-E. The film follows a robot of the same name made to act as a trash compactor on Earth. After humans leave the planet because it becomes too uninhabitable, Wall-E slowly but surely compacts trash over the course of 700 years, only to develop a very un-robot characteristic – emotion. Sound designer Ben Burtt (he worked on Star Wars and is the man behind R2-D2) gave us all a taste of the sound that each robot makes in the film. Interestingly, the film has very little to no dialogue in it. To show just what they meant, they treated us with a great 5 minute scene from the film. I think it looks terrific and there was not a word spoken, which almost made it more touching. I think everyone will enjoy this one, which comes out next summer.

Edward Norton came to discuss his involvement in the next attempt to wrangle The Incredible Hulk, which he surprisingly wrote the script to, as well as stars in. He is a very well-spoken, intelligent man and I have nothing but the utmost respect for him as a person and actor. Liv Tyler is also in the film and came out in a new outfit. The film just started shooting so they unfortunately didn’t have anything to show us.

The gang from Iron Man (director Jon Favreau, Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the man himself, Robert Downey Jr.) visited to show the exclusive Comic-Con footage of the film. Although it was what I saw on Thursday, the reaction in the room was unbelievable. People were going crazy, in a good way. What was really cool though was the fact that this was the first time any of the actors had seen any footage, so their reaction was just the same as the crowd – they were extremely impressed and excited. Needless to say, I think we have another great superhero blockbuster on our hands.

The panel for the vampire/horror film, 30 Days of Night, showed a few bits of the film and it actually looks quite terrifying. Before the panel began, the people running Comic-Con announced that small children should leave the room due to the graphic nature of the film. I can’t blame them. They showed a clip that featured a blood-thirsty little girl that obviously had to be killed, so the scene ended right before said moment occurred, leaving the most of the audience disappointed. Star Josh Hartnett said it pretty nicely after some people groaned, “It’s okay if we imply violence toward children, but apparently it’s not okay to actually show it.” That might not be word for word, but you get the idea.

Lastly, and really the main reason I came for the day, was for the Superbad panel. So producer Judd Apatow (only the mastermind behind some of my favorite projects) came out sporting a white tee with Bill Haverchuck (Freaks & Geeks) on it. Classic. Apatow should seriously do stand up. He had the crowd going for quite awhile, doing jokes about how he was surprised there were such hot women at these sorts of things and about how just because you might be dressed up as a Stormtrooper it doesn’t give you the right to fart all the time (this was after saying that the whole place smelled like farts). Also present was the director, another producer, writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and stars Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, and Christopher “McLovin” Mintz-Plasse. Oh yeah, and then they brought out that girl in Knocked Up who’s always stoned, who’s name is apparently Charlyne and is also apparently dating Michael Cera (I think I cried a little when I found that out). Anyway, they showed two scenes from the movie, and it looks absolutely hilarious and crude – a good combo in my book. A lot of Q&A went to Michael Cera, about his Internet show “Clark and Michael” and questions like “Can I have your baby?” and “When are you making the Arrested Development movie?” There was definitely a lot of Arrested Development love in the room (!). Also, Apatow showed us two scenes from his next film, Walk Hard, due out at the end of the year. It’s basically a parody of musician biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, but this one stars John C. Reilly as the fictional Dewey Cox. So we saw the first five minutes of the movie, which was pretty darn funny, and then a musical scene from later on, with love interest Jenna Fischer (Pam of The Office), which contained a lot of hilarious sexual innuendoes. But you really can’t expect anything less from Mr. Apatow.