Another Comic-Con sailed into the sunset on Sunday, but not before giving us all manner of sneak peeks and preview thrills. What should the responsible pop culture nerd be geeking out about this week? To the recap!
We told you about Homeland's Comic-Con panel this morning — but oh, dear friends, there's so much more popping off at San Diego's annual collection of nerds and movie stars. To the breakdown!
Guess what's coming to a bookstore near you? Why, prequel novels based on the mythology surrounding M. Night Shyamalan and Will Smith's new movie, of course. The flick is called After Earth, and it's got a pretty solid sci-fi premise: One thousand years after Earth has been destroyed by some unknown apocalypse or another, humans live on a planet called Nova Prime. Big Willie plays a guy named Cypher Raige who, no, is not a shitty battle rapper, but rather a soldier coming home to his child the Karate Kid — no, not Hilary Swank, but Jaden Smith. Blazay blah blazay blah, and the two have crash-landed back on Earth, which is all messed up and scary and abandoned now. Mr. Raige is injured and dying because of the aforementioned crash, and the young boy has to save them both. Wait, so this now sounds like it mostly stars Jaden Smith? OK, so there are going to be prequel novels based on a Jaden Smith movie? Alert the Man Booker committee!
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope
If you're like me, the idea of spending good American money to hang out with all the weirdos at San Diego Comic-Con (which is happening right now, as you probably know, since you are on the Internet right now) is unthinkable, what with the noise and the crowds and the screaming and the attendees' B.O. Starting with Super Size Me, though, Morgan Spurlock has specialized in films that document experiences most people would never want to undertake, and Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope is very much in the same tradition.
Comic-Con, San Diego’s annual orgy of geek revelations and Hollywood hype, came to an end over the weekend and the general consensus seemed to be that of a 14-year-old Farscape obsessive after his first messageboard posting: meh. Many of the big guns either chose to sit out this year’s fete entirely or coast on the good-will of enthiastic nerdom by dangling posters or concept art as if they were the One Ring. Such reticence was probably a good call. Recent box-office returns have demonstrating the capriciousness of the Comic-Con audience — as the disconnect between the rapturous response in the room and subsequent commercial failures of one-time Hall H attractions Kick-Ass and Green Lantern proves.
One of the biggest and most-anticipated projects at Comic-Con this year is Prometheus, a secrecy-shrouded possible-prequel to Alien directed by the man responsible for creating the franchise back in 1979, Ridley Scott. Wisely, the 73-year-old Scott declined to make the trek himself, instead sending screenwriter Damon Lindelof to face the seething, geeky masses. (Scott made a cameo appearance via Skype, no doubt interrupting a cracking polo match or some well-deserved Scrooge McDucking.) Lindelof was a perfect choice: Not only did he spend much of the last decade perfecting the art of getting people excited (and, inevitably, furious) by saying very little of substance he also speaks fluent Klingon, er, Nerd. (Actually, he very well might also speak Klingon.)
This fall, MTV resurrects Beavis & Butt-head, the dominant delinquents of the nineties, that faraway decade. And (Mike) Judge-ing from the preview clip debuted at Comic-Con yesterday, the boys are in fine form: screwing action figures to Beavis’s hand, resurrecting Cornholio (thanks to some liberal dosages of pain meds), and inadvertently inspiring a Costco-clogging cult to believe the Metallica-shirted lunatic muttering about “TP” is their reborn messiah. But the best part, as always, is the slyly stupid social commentary — in the new clip the TV is showing Jersey Shore instead of videos which makes perfect sense considering that’s the same route MTV has taken in the 14 years since B&B have picked up a remote.
On Day One of the industry cluster-F that is Comic-Con, DC turned to the desperate housewife demographic for new readers while others simply attempted to turn back the clock. But alpha dog Marvel chose a different direction. Confirming its frontrunning status on the superhero leaderboard, the company chose to do nothing but release a poster for next summer’s The Avengers. A poster with a giant “A” on it (no Hester Prynne). And it was instantly hailed as the biggest news of the day. It was a power move straight out of The Game or a Shaquille O’Neal rap and we applaud Marvel both for its adamantium balls and its willingness to suggest that the “A” might stand for something slightly less heroic than "Avengers."
