Comic Con News and Previews

Comic Con is a magical time of year when all the nerdiest things are put on display for all the nerdiest people. It's here that we get breaking news on and footage of the most popular titles in television and film. The convention is still going, but lets take a look at all the best tidbits thus far.

New TRON: LEGACY trailer -



I'm really excited for this movie. I'm not a huge fan of TRON, it was interesting, but now it's just a bit dated and frankly a little boring. David Warner and the MCP are pretty cool and young Jeff Bridges is also pretty great, but I never would have been clamoring for a sequel. I'm sure glad they're doing it now though. This has the potential to be a far superior and interesting film. The glimpses of youthful Bridges in this trailer are truly astounding and the fact that he's a villain is even better. The effects from the original film are often mocked, but the ones for LEGACY look very cool, I might actually see this in 3D.

- Disney carried on their panel after LEGACY to offer up a PIRATES 4 teaser -



I'll wait for more on this film, but this was a nice thing of Disney to do.

BUT that wasn't all -

Guillermo del Toro made an appearance to announce his next project: THE HAUNTED MANSION based on the popular Disney attraction. First I'll say that Del Toro never confirmed that he would be directing, only that he was producing and writing the film, but that directing might be in the cards. I'm a little disappointed by this because there are so many other projects I'd like to see him work on, but he seems very excited about it. If he ends up at the helm, I bet the film will be pretty good. Apparently, he made several jokes at the expense of Eddie Murphy's HM film from a few years back and promised that it would be better and focus on the Hatbox Ghost character. I'm interested to see where this goes and what Del Toro decides to do.

Next on the Agenda is AMC's panel for "The Walking Dead" series premiering in October -

Here's a bootleg trailer for the show (I'm guessing an official version will be released shortly)



I watched highlights of the panel and they were very exciting. Frank Darabont (THE GREEN MILE, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) seems heavily invested in the program as does the graphic novel's creator Robert Kirkman. I've been saying that a zombie apocalypse show should be done for years because of the vast serial narrative potential of the television medium. Basing this series off the excellent graphic novels only sweetens the deal.

"Dexter" season 5 trailer and promo (Wow) -





Both of these previews give me chills. I never really cared for Rita and her death opens up so many interesting creative avenues for the show, but I feel so bad for Dexter. I really have no clue what's going to happen in season 5, but I can only assume that it's going to be big. It'll take a lot to top season 4 and John Lithgow, but I have a strong feeling that this season will do just that. The continuation of the series is made even more special by the fact that Michael C. Hall has fully recovered from the cancer that threatened his career and his life. Really looking forward to this.

Next years' GREEN LANTERN film had its own panel -

I couldn't glean a whole lot of info from the reports, but I do know that there was some exciting footage previewed. Hopefully a teaser will get released in the near future. It seems that DC is really pushing this as a new beginning for them. I know they're working on other Justice League features, so maybe they will work towards putting some sort of JL film together like Marvel is doing with the AVENGERS. DC has been so unsuccessful with their filmmaking efforts, so I hope they are able to turn things around and now that they're actually mining properties that people actually want to see, I'm counting on it.

Speaking of Marvel -

They had a lot going on thus far at Comic-Con:
- A teaser for THOR was unveiled.
- A brief preview for CAPTAIN AMERICA was also shown.
- Mark Ruffalo was officially announced as the new Bruce Banner/The Hulk. This has been rumored for a couple weeks now, ever since it was announced that Edward Norton would not be asked back to reprise the role (due to not being a team player). I really liked Norton in the role, but I can understand Marvel being very protective of this enormous undertaking and not wanting to take any chances on a difficult movie star. Ruffalo is a fine replacement, I can see him excelling in this role. I'm just glad to know that the character will make it into the film.
- Joss Whedon was officially announced as director of THE AVENGERS, but everyone already knew that.
- Jeremy Renner was announced as THE AVENGERS' Hawkeye. This has also been considered fact for a little while now, but confirmation is nice. I consider this pretty spectacular casting.
- Perhaps my favorite bit of news out of all this: Marvel has now taken back control of it's "Punisher" property. The Punisher is a Marvel character of course, but they didn't have the rights to use him in their films. Just like how Sony owns Spider-Man and Fox owns The X-Men. None of the Punisher films have been very good or up to the character's potential. I'm really excited to hear that Marvel plans on utilizing the skull-clad vigilante in the near future.

If I can think of anything else, I will add it, but that's all for now.