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Vampires, and X-Men, and Hulks, Oh My!
Comic-con is no stranger to celebrities. Fans were treated to huge stars including Hugh Jackman, Angelina Jolie, and Halle Berry. Jackman, in town to promote his summer 2004 film Van Helsing, was treated to "I love Hugh" chants and crowds of star-struck people chasing after him! Gracious to the end, he signed many autographs and even came back for an encore appearance. Other actors including Mark Lutz [Angel], Robia La Morte [Buffy], Danny Strong [Buffy], and the original Hulk Lou Ferrigno spen urs signing autographs for delighted fans. Yet the stars were not the only celebrities around. The Comic-con is notorious for drawing the most dedicated, enthusiastic fans from around the world. This year was no exception. As always, Star Wars costumes were abundant. Unfortunately for the empire, the Jedi far outnumbered the dark side. Numerous Obi-Wans, Rebel Pilots, and Luke Skywalkers outnumbered the Boba Fetts and Storm troopers.
Hobbit turned Angel director, Sean Astin
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Andy Serkis, Elijah Woods, and Sean Astin
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Especially impressed with the costumes was filmmaker Kevin Smith who traversed the floor interviewing the various aliens and lightsaber wielders. Yet perhaps two of the most successful costumes were worn by an equally unlikely duo: Wolverine and Fat Albert. Hugh Jackman had better watch out, because this Wolverine was on point: hair, claws, muscles and all! Having Fat Albert behind him saying "Hey hey hey" (in an incredible impersonation) was just surreal! Jackman was apparently quite impressed with the Wolverine hopeful. Lastly, no Comic-con would be complete without the ever-vibrant Liquor-man. He managed to attract a crowd with his impressive pasty white gut and chants of "Never fear, Liquor man is here." Sean Astin (a.k.a. Sam Gamgee) was also on hand to meet and great the fans, willing to signing autographs and talk about all things Hobbit and otherwise. CoA got a chance to talk to this one-time Angel director to ask about a hopeful return engagement and how challenging it was directing Angel in a cage for the entire episode of 'Souless' during last season . "It was really hard for me," Sean admitted, "but I want to do more. I don't know if I'm going to but I want to. If they'll let me, I'd love to." And he even offer CoA some well wishes, "Good luck with the website." Here's hoping we see him back behind the Angel cameras reel soon.
After the Angel Writers Panel, the whole writing staff and Nancy Holder made their
way to the autograph area 'Under the Sails' where they they filled an entire table for a long
line of enthusiastic fans for an hour and a half! Proving that not just Joss has them lined up
around the corner. They graciously talked with the fans about both Buffy and Angel
and signed all sorts of collectibles from books to posters.
Jason vs. Freddie? Fat Albert vs. Wolverine!
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Speaking of which, the writers themselves were shocked and pleased to see the brand new WB promo
poster which debuted exclusively this weekend at the Dark Horse Booth.
Featuring Angel and Spike, the caption reads: "Just what L.A. needs... A touch of Sunnydale."
The Angel staff were excited to see the new image and happily signed several copies for
the lucky con-goers. Joining the green-room area of the writers signing was Jymm Thomas of
Darling Violetta and Maeline Younger [DV's West Coast street team liason & merchandise rep] who had been promoting
the band all day at the Con and now took a few minutes to relax and hang out with CoA. Buffy/Angel authoress with the hosting duties, Ms. Holder, gave us
this overview of what she experienced, "The highlight of my Comic Con 2003 experience was
hanging out with the CityofAngel gang, who organized a great panel of the writers from
Angel. We had a good panel right after Joss, fielded questions from Danny, Joss, and
Nathan; signed a ton of books (thank you, Mysterious Galaxy!), and then went out for
lobster. What a fantastic way to spend a Saturday. Thank you so much, CoA! You Rock!" And
Nancy, your check is in the mail! The writers were some of the very last guests to leave the
fllor but not before Suzy Dyer [Special Events Manager of the Directors Guild of
America] dropped by to give her hellos. As many of the Angel/Buffy writers do sit
in the director's chair at times, it was an opportunity for them to swap 'thank yous'.
Afterwards she told CoA, "I guess what I walked away with after the writer's panel and
autograph session, and still sticks with me a month later, is how well they all seem to get
along she admit," Suzy admitted. "They seem to really enjoy what they do and who they
do it with. It's like the secret club with the cool tree house you always wanted to be a part
of when you were a kid. Also, Danny Strong waiting in line to ask DeKnight what
it felt like to be a murderer was also a highlight."
Sunday saw another day of previews "Trailer Park" of upcoming movies to warm the audience for the following 20th Century Fox Studios previews which included: Will Smiths I, Robot, Alien, the Director's Cut due for release for Halloween and The Order with Heath Ledger. Peter Pan for this Chrismas shows a different side of the boy from Never, NeverLand. The Warner Bros. previews included Looney Tunes - Back in Action. Screen Gems launched the dark and lycanthic, Under World - fun for vampire and werewolf fans. Paramount showed Timeline from Michael Crichton and director Richard Donner. While Walt Disney previewed The Incredibles. And, HBO Films showed American Splendor the winner of the Sundance Film Fest. Miramax closed out the previews and began the panels as Michael Madson, Laurence Bender and Daryl Hanna were on hand with Quentin Tarantino to preview and talk about his new feature film, Kill Bill.
Have Faith in Tru Calling
Marti Noxon introduces her new series, Still Life
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Then 20th Century Fox Studios temped, teased and titillated the audience with previews of Tim Minear's [former Angel producer, writer, director] Wonder Falls, followed by Marti Noxon [Former executive producer, writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer] with Still Life. She took pleasure in introducing a short preview of the series and began with typical Buffy humor, "Hi I'm Marti and I'm an alcoholic. Wrong meeting. I just wanted to come and introduce Still Life to you guys because as much as it's different than Buffy there are some elements that I think that would really be of interest to our fans, to the people who loved and watched our show. I had a lot of options, because I was so blessed being on Buffy and this is the show I chose to work on. I did not write it, it was written by Kip Koenig and it was produced by Dawn Parouse, who also is the producer of Tru which you just saw. It is a heartfelt family drama but the twist is that it's shown and narrated through the eyes of the son who was murdered the year before. And he is still a spirit; he's still around. He's not a ghost in the traditional sense. He won't show up rattling chains but he is a part of the family and he's still very active. I won't say, 'Movely Nones' or anything that sounds like Lovely Bones, because none of us read that book by the way, but it has an element like that. I hope you guys enjoy it, I hope you'll give it a chance and watch it. We're not coming up in the Fall, we're mid-season so stay tuned. Thanks a lot." Of all the new season TV previews that were shown, Still Life looks to be the one with the most staying potential.
Tru Calling cast (l-r:) Jon Feldman, Eliza Dushku, Jessica Collins, Shawn Reaves, and Zach Galifranakis
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Concluding, was executive producer Jon Feldman presenting a full pilot preview for
Tru Calling after which the entire cast joined together on stage, including fan
favorite Eliza Dushku, with Shawn Reaves, Jessica Collins, and Zach
Galifranakis for their Q&A panel. Eliza greeted the 1,500+ fans by shouting, "Hello,
hello, sup everybody? This is my first time here, this is a trip. Thank you guys for
coming, this is awesome!" Jon began by thanking everyone in advance for their support of the
series, "We're really overwhelmed by the fact that all you guys came out to see the show and
we'd just like to say, well in advance of the show airing, whatever happens thank you for
your support we really appreciated, it means a lot to us." Opening up the floor to questions,
Eliza showed why her fans admire her so much; with poise, beauty, and a style all her own she
was undaunted by the overwhelming adoration. This well spoken, funny, and insightful young
woman has a long career under the Hollywood lights, what ever her true calling may be.
One of the first questions asked was the inevitable: if Tru Calling doesn't make it
would Eliza do a spin-off show for Buffy? which quickly prompted boos from the
audience. But Eliza took it in stride joking, "You know, I'm trying to be optimistic here,
so those kinds of questions aren't appreciated, no. We'll see. I wanted to take a risk, that's what I've always done in my career and I feel like what's there to be afraid of, what have you got to lose, go big or go home, right?" The audience erupted into applause.
One fan really liked Bring It On and wondered if Eliza was gonna do another cheerleading movie. She played along, "I'm sorry, what? You want to do a cheerleading movie? Come up here and show us some skills, my friend, let's see what ya got." The reply came as, "Ah, no thanks. Would you do a cheerleading TV show?" Eliza turned to her producer and asked, "Jon, can you add cheers to the show at some point to satisfy this gentleman?" And Jon confirmed, "Episode 7." Keeping on the themes of sequels, the possibility of True Lies 2 was brought up. "I would love that too." Eliza confessed, "That was kind of a killer job and if Jim Cameron hits one of these conventions anytime soon would you go ahead and ask him for me?" It was asked if her schedule on the new show would allow for a summer movie schedule and Eliza recounted a recent run-in with her former Slayer bud. "That was one thing that was important to me, whether it's a hiatus to do a movie or a hiatus to just chill. I ran into Sarah Michelle Gellar recently and she just started dying laughing when I saw her," Eliza laughed, "and I was like, 'What's so funny?' and she said, 'Honey, get ready to say goodbye to your life because 90 hours a week you're gonna be working your little - [self edited] off." And so she's kind of prepared me that I might want to use my time for a break, but I might throw out some kind of flick if it's cool."
Part of a subplot in Tru Calling is a friend of Tru's creates video games to which Tru's image is used, asked how she felt being a video game hero Eliza admitted, "It was a trip. I actually just did the Buffy video game, and I grew up with three brothers as a lot of people know, so I was always doing the Nintendo. I know how to play my videos games now so to be a character, now my little nephews get to play me. They hit the 'B' button, 'We're out of stakes, we've got to go find some,' I had to do all the voiceover. It was such a trip, but it was pretty bad-ass in my book. To be in a video game? Why not." Another aspect of Eliza's true life, her dedication to the deaf was touched upon by one fan. "Oh, I dig my deaf people, you're my girl right now. I grew up in a town in Boston where we did school plays, and you know how kid's school plays can be and there was a huge blind and deaf school in our town and they made up like the majority of our audience. They would come, loyally, to every show and so we started to incorporate signing into the plays so that they could enjoy it. All the kids, all the cast in the plays would learn sign langue. It just turned into something that I believed in as I've gotten older and I hope that in the future, with some time, I could do some more reaching out like that." This prompted another round of applause.
Jon was addressed a question regarding if the series was going to be episodic - save a person of the week - or if there would be an overall story arc going through the whole show. "The answer is both," he offered, "every week she will have the opportunity to save or not save someone and it's real important that she's not going to be able to save some of these people. And we do have a sort of an over arc unithology that sort of explains how she came to receive these powers from the universe and who's responsibly for that as well as what happened to the mom. We do have some ongoing mythological stuff but we'll also tell, hopefully, a kick-ass story every week." There's always a sweet little girl to ask the all important questions and one such young fan asked Eliza how Faith was different from Tru. "Sometimes I feel like, you've heard it before," she began, "art imitates real life and when I first started playing Faith I was a little bit more insane than I am now, just from being 17 and going through high school. How old are you?" Eliza asked the girl, to which she replied, "Eight." She then offered some sage advice, "You're eight? Yeah, high school? Get ready honey, like strap on your coat of armor because it's not fun for a lot of people. I was kind of playing out my anger and my fear, my frustration and insecurities sometimes in the early days of Faith and a lot of people thought she got soft when I came back for the season finale this year.
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"I'm sorry, what? You want to do a cheerleading movie? Come up here and show us some skills, my friend, let's see what ya got!" ~ Eliza
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I think that as I've grown up, so I think that it's opening more doors for me to play characters who are still strong, who are still bad-ass, kick-ass but who - oh pardon me, you're eight!" Eliza caught herself in the grand child faux pas. "I'll never be invited back to Comic Con again!" she laughed, and quickly corrected herself, "Kick butt! I think that keeping that strength but also taking a little bit more responsibility, as odd as that sounds right now," laughed Eliza and waving off the irony, joked, "Owe, it's hot up here! I think that she's also strong; I think she's more of a problem solver. I think that she's going to try and think and talk out her problems as apposed to beating them out. And that might be nice for some people to see, and send a bit of a better message. Thank you, tell your mom I'm sorry," added Eliza with a big smile.
With the panel winding down one of last questions asked was whether Eliza had any influences or actors that she looked up to. The first person who came to mind was a former co-star. "I had the privilege to work with one of my favorite actresses early on, Jamie Lee Curtis. She's just the whole package; she's so smart, she's so kind, funny, quick. And I remember being on that movie [True Lies] with my real mother and her telling me to watch this woman, because she really is the way an actress would want to be. Both in that her performances are risky and gutsy and, I think, the way she is as a person and the way she treats people is right on." Closing out with another Tru Calling question, it was asked what made Eliza choose the role as Tru for the show. "It all started with the script I guess," she offered. "Originally the show was called Heroine with an 'e' and I thought that was a really cool title and it's kind of misleading, we'll go with Tru Calling. But the script was really well written and I think that as much as I love the pilot that as the show goes on the things that I felt from reading that first script - I mean I couldn't put it down. There were so many elements, there was humor, there was drama, there was suspense; it just seemed to have the whole package. I really hadn't done other previous TV except for Buffy and I knew that coming from that my stakes were pretty high and the script really had it. Sometimes you just go with your gut and it just felt like the right thing to do." Her final words as the cast headed out were joining in Jon's sentiments of thanks, "Honestly guys, thank you. I hope you keep watching the show and I hope you enjoy it."
Each year Comic Con takes us in a new direction with exciting previews into the future of television, film, animation, and of course comics. Whether it's the expectation of another Fray series by Joss Whedon or the third installment to the Lord of The Rings trilogy that is always something for the comic book child in all of us to wonder and Marvel at and it's no surprise that the convention mother of all conventions is the San Diego International Comic Con! And as with every year, it doesn't end here, because next year is always under way with the date set for July 22-25, 2004 - so set your calendars and reverse your seat because you know next year is going to blow away this year and you don't want to miss a single second of the excitement!
Written
by CoA Writers, Kristy Bratton, Jeff Ritchie, Darren Danforth, and Tara DiLullo
CityofAngel.com would like to graciously thank a brick load of people, in no particular order, for their generous contributions in helping to coordinate all of our efforts during ICC03! It was a great Con, without if would have just been a con.
Enormous Thanks go out to: Gary Sassaman, Maryelizabeth Hart, Nancy Holder, Scott Allie,
Sarah Grace, Martha Modlin, David Fury, Allyson Beatrice, Steven S. DeKnight, Jeffrey Bell,
Drew Goddard, Elizabeth Craft, Sarah Fain, Ben Edlund, Daniel DeFabio, Jymm Thomas,
and Maeline Younger.
If you have any comments regarding this CoA "Happenings" feature,
we would love to hear from you. Just email us at:
comments@CityofAngel.com
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