Welcome to Comic-Con Week, folks! I’m getting ready to head out to San Diego for five days of nonstop pop culture starting Wednesday — sadly enough, on a plane and not via TRON lightcycle — and so are Hollywood’s finest. Comic-Con is THE place where movie studios take their best stuff, comics-related and otherwise, to show thousands of people hungry for footage, trailers and the stars. Oh yes, the stars, how they’ll be out in force this year. A-listers such as Will Ferrell, Sylvester Stallone, Tina Fey, Jeff Bridges, Ryan Reynolds, Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren — indeed, Helen Mirren — will all be there. Even Angelina Jolie is coming in to promote her action film Salt, out this weekend. In previous years, the Twilight films (which are noticeably absent this year), Watchmen, Avatar and Iron Man and its sequel have all had great buzz coming out of the con. So what are the best of this year’s crop? Read below for our top 10 list, and keep up to date on the blog and follow me on Twitter for the latest news from Comic-Con. Let us know what movies you want to know most about, and if you haven’t already, check out this full schedule of all that Comic-Con has going on.
Photos courtesy of Disney, Universal, DreamWorks
TRON: Legacy: Don’t think this movie is big? Check out all the banners flying around downtown San Diego these days. With a viral push and an early sneak peek last year, the December sequel to the 1982 Disney movie starring Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner had the geeks talking post-Comic Con about how cool it was going to be. Thursday’s panel will no doubt continue to blow people’s minds, with footage and a huge panel consisting of Bridges and Boxleitner (together again!), younger stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, and a phalanx of filmmakers.
Green Lantern/Sucker Punch: Sure, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is on the Warner Bros. panel on Saturday, too, but those other two films are what’s generating the most interest. For next summer’s Green Lantern, stars Ryan Reynolds, Mark Strong, Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard will be there to chat about the emerald-clad superhero with the super willpower and super-cool ring. (The 6,500 members of geekdom sitting in Hall H may swoon if there’s footage of Reynolds in his CGI supersuit.) The more interesting flick, however, may be Sucker Punch, the latest from visionary director Zack Snyder. The guy behind 300 and Watchmen, Snyder is known for his over-the-top visuals, and this flick about girls in a 1950s mental hospital living out their action-packed fantasies in an alternate reality pretty much could redefine “over the top.” Plus, might Warners cause the biggest ruckus at the con, bring out Christopher Nolan to announce something about Batman 3 and one-up the Marvel Studios panel later that day? Speaking of Marvel…
Thor/Captain America: The First Avenger: Marvel’s panel is just over six hours later but it could end Saturday with a bang with some cool footage from Thor, the Kenneth Branagh film next summer starring Chris Hemsworth as the hammer-wielding Asgardian god. However iffy the pics from the film have been so far, cool footage could get nerd nation back in its corner. Plus, there will also be a Captain America presence, with the likes of stars Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving, who will play Cap and his nemesis the Red Skull respectively. Of course, Joss Whedon could steal the whole show if he debuts his Avengers cast at the con. The 2012 superhero team adventure already has Hemsworth, Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner. Could Whedon, already there because of his panel with J.J. Abrams on Thursday, also introduce the movie’s new Hulk and maybe a rumored role for one of his favorite guys, Nathan Fillion? One can only dream.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: Bryan Lee O’Malley’s little indie-comic-that-could has its Tinseltown coming-out party on Thursday with a panel that includes the writer, director Edgar Wright and stars Michael Cera, Jason Schwartzman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Anna Kendrick, Brandon Routh and more. Thankfully, fans don’t have to wait too long to see this one — it opens in theaters Aug. 13 — but any footage with video-game fights will be met with much enthusiasm.
The Expendables: If only I could jump in Doc Brown’s time-traveling DeLorean and bring my 10-year-old self to see this Aug. 13 action flick filled with 1980s stars. Oh, who am I kidding — my 34-year-old self is psyched enough to see this flick directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone and including a seriously testosterone-heavy cast of Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Terry Crews and Mickey Rourke. If Thor’s dropping the hammer on Comic-Con, Stallone’s putting it in a headlock.
Red: Willis will be on hand Thursday for his own starring vehicle, Red, based on the Warren Ellis comic series. Mary-Louise Parker will be on the panel as well, but the most surprising — and coolest — panelist is Helen Mirren. Now, people can make arguments about what should and shouldn’t go to Comic-Con, and one may not peg her going to the convention as a fan, but watch this trailer for Red with her packing some serious heat and seriously tell me she doesn’t belong there. This could be one of the hottest flicks coming out of the weekend, which is good considering Red hits theaters in October.
Megamind: Tina Fey is a favorite of geekdom, so she should expect a rousing bit of applause when she joins Will Ferrell on the Thursday Megamind panel. In what looks like he best animated superhero movie since The Incredibles, Fey voices a newswoman who’s caught between a egomaniacal supervillain (Ferrell) and his do-gooding arch-nemesis (Brad Pitt). If Jolie will be at Comic-Con, could Pitt be far behind?
Super: Kick-Ass was a con favorite last summer, but underperformed to many people’s opinions when it was released this spring. Perhaps the similar Super will catch on better, with Rainn Wilson as a guy who becomes a costumed crimefighter to win his beloved back from a drug dealer. Writer-director James Gunn teams up again with his Slither star Fillion, and all three will be among the panelists on Friday showing first looks at the movie.
Paul: Sharing a Saturday panel with Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens, this comedy reteaming Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is a perfect one for this con crowd. Directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad) and due out in March, it chronicles the journey of two geeks who meet an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) on their way to — fittingly — Comic-Con. Rogen and Sigourney Weaver will also be on the panel.
Resident Evil: Afterlife: Joining Weaver as a resident Comic-Con geek goddess is Milla Jovovich, who revisits her Alice character for a fourth Resident Evil film, again directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson. This time around, they’ve learned from Avatar and filmed the movie with similar 3D cameras, so Jovovich, Ali Larter and former Prison Break star Wentworth Miller will be unveiling 3D footage for the Comic-Con faithful.
