By Maura Reilly Jul 23, 2006, 3:12 GMT
Snoop Dog’s Hood of Horror: I think the same traffic that delayed me yesterday caught Snoop Dogg this morning. But co-writer/producer Tim Sullivan and Martin Shore brought clips galore and a large number of cast members including Ernie Hudson, Lynn Shea, Pooch Hall, Brande Roderick, Diamond Dallas Page, and Daniella Alanso.
Sullivan made up a mock comic strip and some t-shirts to sell their idea of a Tales from the Crypt style horror flick with Snoop as the demon story teller, a crib keeper if you will. The final result is a trio of stories with an urban flare out November 4th.
Sullivan looked out into the sizable audience and commented “I think that’s as many people who saw [his film] 2001 Maniacs…maybe a few more.”
Twentieth Century Fox Presents: The Fox panel was a varied and diverse group of films. First up was the anticipated ‘Eragon.’ Shot in five countries and using dragon effects from ILM and WETA, the movie opens December 15th.
It is sure to make its young star Edward Speleers an international superstar.
Finding their lead was a long and almost futile process. Scouring all the English speaking countries the producers at Fox were 2 days away from pulling the plug when Director Stefen Fangmeier over-nighted an audition tape of young Edward to Los Angeles.
And the rest as they say is cinematic history.
Whisked away to location, Speleers took archery, sword fighting, boxing and acting lessons (this is his first acting role) to prepare. Edward has also supplied the voice for the new ‘Eragon’ video game.
Three of Reno’s finest came by to discuss the new film that “documents” their recent work in Florida, ‘Reno 911: Miami’.
Lieutenant Jim Dangle (Thomas Lennon), Deputy Travis Junior (Ben Garant), and Deputy Trudy Wiegel (Kerri Kinney) tried to assure the audience present that the filmmakers intentionally made the officers look like incompetent idiots, that they left out all the good work that had been done. The good news is there was no poultry brutality in this film.
Director Marcus Nispel began the ‘Pathfinder’ panel with an anecdote about bringing the first footage of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (2003) to Comic Con after the critics and online opinion of the project was so low.
The reception he received was gratifying and reassuring.
Actor Clancy Brown was cast as the Viking commander Gunnar. Brown told how when he and Nispel were discussing the character’s look and attitude Nispel wanted Gunnar to look old and tired, like this raid could be his last.
Clancy thought: “Man have you got the right guy.” This movie is a first cinematic look at what has recently been proved to be fact that Vikings had traveled up and down the eastern United States seaboard 500 years before Columbus discovered America. ‘Pathfinder’ supposes what one of these excursions may have been like if they had encountered the native peoples of the region.
The Vikings in this film all speak Icelandic, something Clancy (who ended up having the most dialogue) found frightening. And then there was the time co-star Karl Urban had him dangling above the ground on wires for an intricate stunt Urban insisted doing himself. “I’ve never forgiven Karl for that.” Nispel was so happy the Russian guy from ‘Bourne Supremacy’ spoke English.
Borat Sagdiyev made a memorable entrance to introduce the trailer for his film ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,’ a film sure to horrify, offend, and confuse many.
Paramount Pictures: ‘Stardus’: Author Neil Gaiman was on hand with co-screenwriter Jane Goldman, illustrator Charles Vess, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to discuss and show clips from the big screen adaptation of his book Stardust.
There have been attempts to make Stardust into a movie and it wasn’t until Matthew Vaughn stepped up that this graphic novel came to life.
Vaughn was in London working on green screen photography for the film and was unable to attend. There will be a hardcover book of Stardust out in March to coincide with the film that will include a new cover by Charles Vess who found inspiration after visiting the set recently.
A couple interesting tidbits Neil shared with the attendees: Terry Gilliam is once again attached to ‘Good Omens,’ two additional Gaiman works are coming to screens: Coraline (as a stop motion animated film by Henry Selick with French & Saunders as the voices of the two old ladies) and ‘Beowulf’ (Gaiman co-wrote the screenplay) which Gaiman calls “cheerfully violent, deeply deeply weird, which being faithful to the poem.
Coming up: ‘Children of Men’ and Samuel L. Jackson’s on ‘Snakes on a Plane’.
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