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Who was there?
Director Mark
Steven Johnson
Actor Ben
Affleck
Producer Gary
Foster
Producer Avi
Arad
Artist Joe
Quesada
Once
again, the good people at Fox came through with yet another solid panel
with exclusive footage, as everyone involved in this production seemed
to be there to tout it out to the fanboys of the world (Colin Farrell,
who plays Bullseye in the film was originally supposed to make an
appearance as well, but he had a family health scare and had to get back
to Ireland asap). So the panel came out to field questions from the
audience, but before they got going, they answered a few questions from
the moderator and then showed a 3-4 minute clip from the movie. Before
they showed us the clip though, they too, told us about how it was
exclusive to us only, and that even the studio hadn't seen the footage
yet. They also said that they brought it to the comic book fans first
because without their support...it would be an uphill battle. Actually,
Affleck put it most poignantly: "If you guys don't like the
movie...we're really fucked!" Laughs ensued.
 Johnson
then told us exactly what we were going to see which would be separated
into three parts. The first part would consist of a little bit of the
"origin" of the DAREDEVIL
early on in the film, with a younger kid actor playing the part of Matt
Murdock aka Daredevil. The second part would give us a little insight
into the "real" pain, anguish and after-effects of a
superhero's life, as Daredevil (Affleck) returns to his pad in Hell's
Kitchen, N.Y. after a long night of crime-fighting. And the third
section of the footage would basically be a lot of action stuff spliced
together over some techno music, just to get us going (I suppose). My
impression of it all was pretty positive, although after seeing the X-MEN
2 clip, I was a little underwhelmed, but not as much as the T3 clip.
In fact, now that I think back on it, it was actually pretty cool in
that gritty, raw, street-level way. It felt and looked a lot like the
original BATMAN, with the grimy streets, the cold harshness of the city,
the real human feel. The first clip showed little Matt being carried on
his dad's shoulder's in the boxing ring (after he had won a fight, I
assume), with a devil-ish cape around him. This was followed by the dad
getting shot up in the alley, and little Matt crying over him. It was a
real nice shot with the camera panning all the way up and overlooking
the setting. Pretty touching, actually.
The
next clip featured Affleck landing on a rooftop in his uniform and
miraculously switching three locks off to open the door to his domain.
He then walks in really slow and obviously hurt, makes his way to the
medicine cabinet, which is filled with pills/pills/pills, slaps a few
down his throat, takes off his mask (and places it in its place) and
then sinks into a bath that closes up on him. He doesn't utter a word
the whole time, but basically looks dejected, hurt and depressed. Once
more, this clip worked for me, but not on that typical
"superhero" level-- it was almost like the original LETHAL
WEAPON, when we really got a sense of the Mel Gibson's character's
back story and cared. The third part was all wham-bam with some shots of
Bullseye, Elektra (played by the lovely Jennifer Garner) and Kingpin
(played by the lovely Michael Clarke Duncan) and others (Joe Pantaliano,
Coolio, Kevin Smith..) played over some rockin' techno music, with a lot
of action and Daredevil kicking ass. It was okay, but went by too quick
for me to really register much. Overall, it was a solid clip and it was
nice of them to bring it along for the show. They then answered a few
questions from the crowd and poof...they were gone! (Keyser Soze?)
 So
how did director Mark Steven Johnson get the gig as the main man on this
flick? (he had previously only directed one other picture, which was
1998's SIMON BIRCH, and written some real "doozies" including
GRUMPY OLD MEN and GRUMPIER OLD MEN-- not exactly comic book material,
right?) He said that he'd always been a huge DAREDEVIL fan, like most
everyone else on the panel, and that he basically "harassed"
the producers until they gave him the job. He also said that he really
understood and loved the character. Producer Arad confirmed Johnson's
harassment and said that once they got him on board, they all began to
"harass" Ben Affleck to take the prime gig, by asking Joe
Quesada to ask Kevin Smith to ask Affleck, etc... Wow, it looks like we
know how Hollywood works now...connections, baby! That...and a lot of
harassment! :) Affleck and Smith have made a few movies together and are
good friends, and since Smith also wrote a recent run of the DAREDEVIL
comic himself, he also got a small cameo in the film as a lab assistant.
Johnson finished off by telling us that the film was to wrap on Tuesday,
August 6th, 2002 and that it was tentatively set to be released in
theaters on Valentine's Day of 2003 (February 14).
One
of the funniest parts of the panel came when one obvious Kevin Smith
junkie got up and said to Affleck: "Ben, you were the bomb in
PHANTOMS, yo!" The crowd got a kick out of that and so did Affleck.
"Thank you."
And
thanks to everyone at this year's Con for making our reporting job that
much easier with more access, greater exclusives and mucho, mucho
payola! (I kid, of course)
Click
here to check out the official DAREDEVIL website
Check
out the film's teaser trailer here
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The Arrow and I went down to San Diego for yet another awesome COMIC
CONVENTION this year (check out our 2000 and
2001 reports respectively), and let me
tell you...there was a lot of shit going on and lots of cool and
surprising cameos. Starting Wednesday, each of the
panel coverages will go up, so check out what's to come below. And yes, the always popular
PHOTO GALLERY will be up on Friday.
The Hellboy
panel:
Writer/director Guillermo Del Toro, actor
Ron Perlman and writer/artist
Mike Mignola discuss the upcoming comic-to-film project, as Del Toro
sneaks a few dozen "fucks" in there before the panel's first 10
minutes is up.
The Bulletproof Monk
panel:
Actor Seann William Scott and
actress/babe Jamie King sit down and
discuss their collaboration on the upcoming THE BULLETPROOF MONK, which also
co-stars the very cool Chow Yun-Fat.
The House of the Dead
panel:
Writers Mark. A. Altman and Dave
Parker discuss the 2003 release of yet another video game
making its way to the big screen: THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD. And what's this
about a VAMPIRELLA movie? Stay tuned.
SONY/COLUMBIA
The XXX panel:
Actress/babe Asia Argento hops
on stage and tells us a little something about herself and her upcoming
movie with a certain Vin Diesel. Does Vin show up unexpectedly?? (only
in my dreams... ;)
The Tooth Fairy
panel:
Actress/babe Emma Caulfield
discusses her upcoming foray into genre flicks with TOOTH FAIRY, and the
Arrow takes a few moments to discuss the film with director Jonathan
Liebesman. Tooth-pulling ensues.
NEW LINE
The LOTR: The Two Towers
panel:
No footage was shown but we did get a couple of bits tossed our
way, as well as some cameos by Frodo, Pippin and Merry themselves (aka Elijah
Wood, Billy Boyd and Dominic
Monaghan).
WARNER BROS
The Ecks vs Sever
panel:
Actress/babe Lucy Lui sits next
to actor/Darth Maul Ray Park and
director Kaos (who explained the
origins of his name) to discuss their collaboration with the
man with the golden cock, Antonio Banderas, in a little something called
BALLISTIC: ECKS VS SEVER (and yes, it's also based on a video game).
The Dreamcatcher
panel:
Actor/all-around cool guy Jason Lee
and actor Timothy Olyphant get on
stage to field some questions about the film which they are presently
shooting, based on a Stephen King novel, entitled DREAMCATCHER, but are
instead pelted with questions about Kevin Smith movies and requests to
repeat cool quotes from said flicks.
The Terminator 3
surprise:
Unbeknownst to most, director Jonathan
Mostow was nice enough to drop by the Con, in order to show
off a few minutes of the highly anticipated sequel to the sequel of THE
TERMINATOR. Another "small" cameo dropped by to pay his props
to the fanboys, a gentleman by the name of Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
UNIVERSAL
The Hulk panel:
Director Ang Lee and producers Gale
Anne Hurd, Larry J. Franco
and Avi Arad stop by to show us some
stills of the 2003 release of THE HULK (that's right, no actual footage
or pics of the green monster...darn!) and answer some questions.
FOX
The Solaris
surprise:
Yet another big surprise came in writer/director/king of the world James
Cameron showing up for a quick Q&A about the upcoming
sci-fi flick SOLARIS (which he produced and Steven Soderbergh wrote and
directed), as well as a 4-minute clip from the actual movie, starring
George Clooney.
The X-Men 2
panel:
Director Bryan Singer was nice
enough to leave his Vancouver set of X2 and come down to Diego for some
questions from the audience and to show us the coolest 2-minute clip
that I saw all weekend. Wow!! The man apparently has only been shooting
from about 3-4 weeks, but from what we all saw of the clip...this movie
looks like a fuckin' slam-dunk!
The Daredevil
panel:
This was one of the biggest panels with writer/director Mark
Steven Johnson leading the pack, alongside DAREDEVIL himself,
Ben Affleck, as well as producer Avi
Arad, Gary Foster and
comic guru Joe Quesada. Yet another
exclusive clip was shown from the movie, and it will also be discussed.
The official
2002
JoBlo.com Photo Gallery:
Pictures from our trip to California / Vegas for anyone who gives a
shit. Here are the links to last
year's photo gallery and the one from 2000.
Please
provide us FEEDBACK on any of this here
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