WARNER BROS. PANEL
INVASION
INVASION didn’t have a panel, per se, but it did have a presence during Warner Bros. scheduled time. Nicole Kidman was off shooting AUSTRALIA with Hugh Jackman and couldn’t make it but was game enough to film an intro. Maybe it was a sleepy Friday morning crowd or maybe Nicole Kidman doesn’t mean much to fanboys but I was surprised the video didn’t get more of a reaction. She just talked about how she was sorry she couldn’t be in San Diego and how much fun she had making this movie (really?).
Then she introduced the new trailer for the film.
This trailer is basically just a longer, freakier version of the teaser. It’s a kinda stale concept and Nicole Kidman inspires nothing within me yet I still found myself drawn into this movie. Something inherently creepy about feeling like everyone is out to get you. The people who were “sick” had a pretty nasty look to them, which was pretty cool. The only thing that worries me about this film is that we’re led to believe the kid of Nicole Kidman is the key to this whole crazy event. I’m sick of creepy kids in horror movies so let’s move past that. Hopefully the Wachowskis played down this element in their reshoots.
WHITEOUT
That was it for INVASION and up next was another thriller WHITEOUT, based on the popular graphic novel. They showed the footage and sadly it looks like standard detective thriller fare. It did not surprise me to learn this was a Dark Castle (13 GHOSTS, HOUSE OF WAX) production. Basically we are subjected to some voiceover telling us that Antarctica is really cold and it gets really dark there and now there’s a murder there are we should really solve it before it gets really dark and…well, snow ensues. Heck the film has Kate Beckinsale, which should be its best asset, but it keeps her wrapped up in a bulky parka. BOO-URNS.
After the footage they brought out producer Joel Silver, director Dominic Sena and….Kate Beckinsale? No Kate, not yet. She’ll be right here, we’re told. So Silver and Sena do their best to vamp and kill time as we wait and wait and wait. The panel is open to Q&A but this clearly is going nowhere. “Did you film in the Antarctic?” Uhhh no, buddy. That would be retarded. After about twenty minutes of embarrassingly boring chit-chat, Silver finally left the stage to get to the bottom of things or throw a phone or whatever it is that he does.
Sena was now all alone and got desperate. “So you wanna see that footage again?!” Ehh, not so much. This isn’t 300 pal. Out of ideas though, they had no choice. They ran it again to a chorus of sighs. Luckily shortly after the lights came up, out came Kate Beckinsale. She was stuck behind a train getting into San Diego and that’s why she was late. Now I understand she’s a pretty big star and all but WHITEOUT had already gone past its time, boring the audience and now they were basically starting over from scratch with Kate involved. All the generic movie questions were answered so now we were left with horny fanboys getting up to the mic with “Umm, I totally loved you in UNDERWORLD and you looks so hot in the black suit…” Needless to say, I took a quick Hall H break at this point.
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