The HOUSE OF THE HEAD panel
by JoBlo

Who was there?
Writer Mark Altman
Writer Dave Parker

I actually walked in a little late to this panel, so I missed some of the footage which they had apparently shown, but I did see most of the slide-show pictures and they were basically typical “zombie” pics (much like the Arrow's coverage of the SAMHAIN set here), which didn’t really say much about the film, one way or the other. There were a couple of interesting pictures which had the editor of FANGORIA, Tony Timpone being dressed up like a zombie though, as well as a writer for MAXIM (“we gotta whore out to the magazines”), but other than that, nothing that especially stood out. Some more stuff that I got out of the panel included:

• They showed footage of the upcoming HOUSE OF THE DEAD 3 video game for X-Box, which actually looked pretty wicked.

• They said that the next video game would be based on the plot of this movie.

• They said that they were putting together the sequel of the film right now, and always saw it as a 9-part series (not sure if they were kidding about that last part or not though)

• They also exclusively announced at the Comic Con that their company, Mindfire, is now setting up to do the live feature film of VAMPIRELLA, the infamous sexy vampire comic book.

• When will THE HOUSE OF THE HEAD be released? They said that they were “completing negotiations with a studio” right now, but that they were looking for an early 2003 release.

• They said that the rating on the film would definitely be an “R”, but that they intended to have an unrated DVD with “guts and all” kept in.

• When asked whether or not the success of RESIDENT EVIL would help them, they said that any success of any zombie movie is good for them. They did say that one main difference between their film and Paul Anderson’s creation was that even the people who said that they enjoyed that movie, didn’t think there were enough zombies in it. “We have zombies galore…from beginning to end!”

• When asked if there was going to be any subtext in their zombie flick, like some of the classics, they thought about it for a sec, laughed and then replied, “No.” They said that they just wanted to make a “rockin' wild zombie movie!”

• The type of soundtrack to expect is a mix of metal and techno, with an orchestral score.

• Since the zombies in their flick move rather fast, one audience member asked if this was ever addressed in their movie, but they said that it wasn’t. It’s basically a 90-minute "wall to wall action movie".

• They admitted to paying homage to George Romero in the film, but that they definitely wanted to do some different and defining things of their own (they actually have a MATRIX-esque bullet-time sequence in the movie)

• And what about the zombie monkey, you may be asking yourself? They apparently had written the zombie monkey into their original draft screenplay, but it was ultimately cut out of the film due to budget restrictions. They did promise that the opening scene of the next film would feature the zombie monkey to make up for it though.

SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 2002

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.