WONDERCON 2011—PRIEST (2011)

The resuscitation of the classic western genre seems to occur whenever it's fused with another genre, producing dissonant hybrids, intriguing for their anachronistic elements. These hybrids seem to negate the threat mumbled through clenched teeth that, "There's just not room enough for both of us in this here town." Whereas with Cowboys & Aliens Jon Favreau has pursued the "science fiction western"—following on the outlaw trail of such steampunk narratives as Wild Wild West (1999), Back to the Future III (1990) and the ridiculous but oddly entertaining The Valley of Gwangi (1969)—the category of the "weird west" is even richer in representation, ranging from Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (both released in 1966), through Ravenous (1999), The Burrowers (2009), right on up to this summer's blockbuster release of Scott Stewart's Priest (2011), based on the manhwa by Hyung Min-woo.

Consciously tipping its dusty hat in homage to John Ford's The Searchers (1956)—where the vampires become the Comanche and Paul Bettany steps in for John Wayne—Priest is a post-apocalyptic action thriller set in an alternate world, one ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. The war has been won by warrior priests trained in specialized combat; but, once their mission is accomplished, the Church decommissions them into thankless obsolescence and exerts a tight grip on the populace by confining them behind walled-in dystopian cities where cathedral smokestacks belch black ash over the inhabitants. When his niece is abducted by vampires, Priest (Bettany) breaks his sacred vows to venture into the wastelands after them, joined by his niece's boyfriend (Cam Gigandet).

Stewart was joined at the WonderCon panel by actors Paul Bettany, Cam Gigandet, Lily Collins, and graphic novelist Hyung Min-woo, who flew in from Korea specifically for the event. In his entry earlier this year posting the film's "surprisingly solid" trailer, Twitch teammate Todd Brown argued: "Despite being enormously talented Paul Bettany has been on a downward slide lately, some dodgy decisions pretty much killing him as a viable box office star." Judging from Bettany's screaming coterie of female fans (some sitting right next to me) at WonderCon, however, I wouldn't write him off so fast. With lethal equanimity, Bettany creates a focused and precise executioner in his portrayal of Priest. Todd's subsequent reassessment that the trailer suggests a film that is "big and burly and stupid in all the right, escapist ways" that "could actually be a lot of fun" might end up proving spot on. I offer a recording of the WonderCon panel Q&A.

Cross-published on Twitch.

WONDERCON 2011—Jon Favreau on COWBOYS & ALIENS (2011)

WonderCon fans started lining up three hours in advance to insure entrance into the Esplanade Ballroom to catch their first glimpse of exclusive footage from Jon Favreau's anticipated summer blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens (2011), an imaginative hybrid of the classic Western with the alien-invasion movie, based on Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's 1997 graphic novel and due to be released by Dreamworks / Universal Pictures on July 29, 2011. Joined by an arsenal of top moviemakers—Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci—Favreau corrals audiences into 1873 Arizona where lone cowboy Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) leads an uprising against an extraterrestrial terror. Although actors Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde weren't able to attend WonderCon, director Favreau (who admitted he felt like a rock star) and producer Orci were on hand to enthuse their cheering WonderCon crowd.

On Attending WonderCon

I was here in 2008 to promote Iron Man. It really was a wonderful moment, similar to this in that people didn't know what to expect. We were a bit of an underdog back then. ComicCon has turned into this huge thing and it's a lot of fun; but, WonderCon reminds me a lot of what ComicCon was like when I first started going to ComicCon. ComicCon has been so instrumental in so many movies really arriving that everybody focuses a lot of attention there; but, it's more like a big festival or big party. What's nice about WonderCon is it's a little bit more intimate and we can really have a dialogue here and talk about things. It's not like a big carnival. I think it also shows you guys who really cares about this group of people and I, for one, am very grateful for what you guys have all done for my career. So I want to make sure that this remains a priority. There's a much more limited slate of films that have prioritized this event so it allows for a better dialogue.

On Why He Became Intrigued By Cowboys & Aliens

First of all, Bob [Orci]—in addition to being producer on the film—is one of the writers of the draft; he, along with Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. They had worked together on the Star Trek film, which I thought was great. I had heard about Cowboys & Aliens many times. I heard about it first when Fergus and Ostby—the writing team that wrote the first Iron Man film—had been hired to do a first draft so I was really intrigued. Then when we were working on Iron Man 2, Robert [Downey] was flirting with the project as well so I kept hearing that there was this really great version of the film Cowboys & Aliens—there were a lot of really bad versions of the film named Cowboys & Aliens too—but, if it were done right (and I heard Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg were all attached to this thing), it was a very intriguing idea.

On Working With Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford

These guys were great. Daniel Craig is just an awesome, professional, great dude. I admired his work in Layer Cake and, of course, later in the Bond films where he was a sort of a vulnerable but really badass hero, where the wheels were always turning. He's really invested in the stakes of the moment. So you have that generation. And then, of course, Harrison was a late-breaking idea because we didn't think it was doable at all. We never thought he would want to come back to genre and—as most of the people in this room feel—we fell in love with the guy through films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. To have him bring that pedigree was almost like when you would cast John Wayne in a western. He brings this entire history and so you have two generations of action stars who reluctantly have to work together—we start them very much at odds in a cruel environment—to rescue their people. It was just great. They both care deeply about the process, they were a lot of fun, we were all living out in Santa Fe for the summer, and it was a dream project.

On Olivia Wilde's Character

She's awesome, first of all. I said, "Olivia, please try to come down"—she was working—I said, "Please come down. All your fans who have crushes on you are here. Do you have any message I should pass along?" And she literally texted me to tell you guys that she sleeps naked. She's the best. She's wonderful. Her character is somebody who's a little bit more in the know than she seems to be and she's a key to the film in many ways.

On Why—As An Actor—He Wasn't Tempted To Put Himself In the Movie

I really wanted to, but on Family Guy Seth McFarlane made fun of me for putting myself in all my movies. I didn't want to blow the reality of the film either. So much of this film is the tone and you have to feel so invested in the western that when the aliens come—even though you know it's Cowboys & Aliens—it feels like a surprise. Although the movie is fun, I wanted the fun to come from the mash-up of the genres, not because the people in the western didn't think it was real or were winking. I wanted the characters to be freaked out and the audience to be laughing. Even when I do comedy, that's something I like. I like the people to be worried about what's going to happen next and I want the excitement to come from just the juxtapositioning of things. So much of this is about hitting the tone square on and I feel that we did that quite well.

On Whether He Prefers Acting to Directing

I enjoy directing more to be honest with you because—now that this [attending WonderCon] has become part of directing; now that we're trying to lock picture and finish off effects and get the music in and this is the moment when it tends to become the most trying and there's the most anxiety from the studios and you're trying to figure out your release and your marketing campaign—to be able to come here and show you this and to feel like we're throwing a party and have it be appreciated so much, it makes directing the most fun job there is in the world, for sure.

On the Value of Fans and Social Networking

I'm speaking and showing a lot to the people who run the blogs. In this day and age with social networking and Twitter, what's nice is—if you have the goods and you get the word out—it spreads. It's good to have marketing to get the message out there; but, more importantly, much like political campaigning, you got to get your message out with the people. We thought WonderCon would be a really great venue to show some stuff.

Generally you show—what?—a few minutes? But I heard the Green Lantern footage was really good and they showed nine minutes, right? So I guess we better show nine minutes! What we're showing you is not going online. This is not the trailer that's going to be cut down from this. It's purely some footage that we put together for this room and this room only and there are things that we've never shown before in it and things that we'll probably never show again until the film comes out; but, this is our last moment. ComicCon will come about a week before the film comes out so we've either got to go big or go home there; but, it's too late. There the marketing machines will have already taken over. This is really our last moment to be in communication with the fans and so we thought WonderCon would be a great opportunity to make it worth your while for coming to San Francisco.

[They roll the preview reel, after which the audience roars with applause.]

You don't know how good this makes us feel right now! By the way, you're the only ones who get to see that alien there in the end. We're not showing it to anybody else. It's not going into marketing material so you get the only glimpse. Everyone's going to ask you, "What did it look like? Was it scary?" We're going to try to keep it as much a mystery as we can. There's a whole end of the movie that's all about the aliens on the ground that we're kind of holding back from showing because we want to keep the sense of mystery. That's not popular but we want the campaign to leave something to the imagination so that—when you actually pay to see the film—you actually don't feel like you've seen it already. And, by the way, it will be shown in glorious 2D! Come early and often and help us fight through a competitive summer. If you want to see movies shot on film in 2D, let the theater owners know that the fans still think that 2D is not dead yet.

On the Purposeful Avoidance of Historical Figures in Cowboys & Aliens

Part of making too many historical figures in it, it starts to feel cute. You guys got it. You guys are the first audience to really see what this movie is about and where the fun is. The fun isn't in making fun of the fact that they're in a western; the fun is about it blowing their minds and their trying to wrap their heads around what they're experiencing and how do these small people fight against such long odds with such superior technology? That's the fun of this film. By peppering in cute cameos of historical figures, I loved it in Deadwood but in this film it would have interfered and made it a little less mythic.

On Cameos in Westerns

[This is Robert Orci's comment.] In the western there's a long history of cameos. The reason why you get people like Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Walt Goggins or Ana de la Reguera—the reason they all come out of the woodwork—is because every part matters. There's no small parts in a western.

On the Value of Tax Incentives for Filming in New Mexico

We shot in a combination of California and New Mexico. I'm in a place in my career where I never really chase the tax breaks. We went with New Mexico primarily for the look of it. We liked it and to film in the summer worked well for us. There's a really good film infrastructure. We built a lot of our sets in California. The tax break situation is a tricky one because the film quality shouldn't be compromised by chasing tighter margins; but, if it's best for the film—as it was in our case to shoot a combination of L.A. and New Mexico—I thought it was great. Rather than do CG set extensions, you really had beautiful landscapes and a great community of filmmakers there in New Mexico as well, but I prefer shooting in California when I can.

On Which Comic Character He Would Like to Film Next

I would like to play Groo someday. That's my dream. Sergio Aragonés, thank you!

On Whether the Film's Genre Hybrid Comments On Manifest Destiny

What's happened in the post-Vietnam era is that manifest destiny kind of went out the window as a simple thought. We began to sympathize more with indigenous populations. The colonial age was ending and we began to see ourselves as a world community. I think that's a positive thing. The bad thing about filmmaking is that we've often dealt with archetypes that weren't related to the reality of who those people were and we've lost a lot of the traditions of filmmaking. What's fun with all these alien invasion movies is that you can make the aliens an ineffable force of evil and allow the cowboys and Indians to come together to fight them and fall back on very old traditions of what you would see in the older westerns. Because you're dealing with an alien force and it's no longer people fighting against people. It opens up the door in a way to make the filmmaking a lot more rough and brutal and simplistic and that was a big appeal for this. I think you're seeing it in war movies. In a lot of alien movies you're going to start to see a lot of the old traditions of filmmaking come back because you're not as concerned with the political correctness of what you're dealing with. You can make a PG-13 movie really brutal too if you're not killing real people, which is also fun. There are heads coming off in Lord of the Rings and that's PG-13, right?

Cross-published on Twitch.

WONDERCON 2010—Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

As any gamer or blockbuster fanboy will tell you, adapting a video game for a film is often not the best decision for either medium. Yet the guns at the big studios remain convinced they can offer gaming's immersive and interactive experience within the frame of cinematic narratives on the big screen. Hopes run high for Disney's Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, whose WonderCon panel was moderated by L.A. Times writer Geoff Boucher and introduced by producer Jerry Bruckheimer (at his first-ever comics convention), with director Mike Newell, game creator / story consultant Jordan Mechner, and the Prince himself Jake Gyllenhaal on hand to field questions.

As synopsized at IMDb: Set in medieval Persia, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is the story of an adventurous prince who teams up with a rival princess to stop an angry ruler from unleashing a sandstorm that could destroy the world. Which is why after the prince is tricked by a dying Vizier to unleash the Sands of Time that turns out to destroy a kingdom and transforms its populace into ferocious demons, he makes efforts to save his own kingdom and redeem his fatal mistake. It's up to the prince and the princess to return the sands to the hourglass by using the Dagger of Time, which also gives him a limited control over the flow of time.

Starting off their WonderCon presentation with an action-packed sizzler reel of the siege of a 6th Century walled city, director Mike Newell complained that the scene was a huge undertaking that took forever to shoot. Shot on three separate tracks—one for character interaction; a second unit for Gyllenhaal's stunts (Newell felt it important to point out that this was made much easier by Jake doing a tremendous number of his own stunts); and the third for the computer graphics—each track was equally complicated within the particular scene. To create shots of the city—because, of course, the city didn't exist—they sent people to India to photograph Indian cities so that they could get the detail absolutely right. Although the wide shots were created with CGI, the big castle in this sequence actually existed, situated on one of the most colossal stages of the world: the Bond stage at England's Pinewood Studios.

As to how they determined the tone of the film, Newell relayed that he and Bruckheimer felt it was very important that they both feel good about their vision of the project, and they agreed that the film should not have a postmodern tone, by which Newell meant that the characters would not do something heroic and then turn to the camera to wink. They didn't want that at all. They wanted the story to be absolutely for real from the ground up and that the audience would sense the peril, the emotions, the love, and find themselves right in the middle of the action throughout the whole movie, without being constantly yanked out by the movie commenting on itself.

Bruckheimer's priority of tone was to realistically capture the period, to express the film's humor, and its romance. In effect, he felt the key was to tell a great story. Crediting Jordan Bechner with having created great characters while adding a Shakespearean element to the character drama, and then bringing a fantastic director like Mike Newell on board to guide the actors along the way, created something special; but, ultimately, it was always about the story. No matter how good Mechner's original game was, Bruckheimer knew that if he gave audiences a bad story, they would be bored. They shot in Morocco where—though it doesn't show on screen—it was nearly 120° every day. It was brutal on location for Mike Newell and his cast. Again, it shows in their performances, you can feel the heat, feel the tension and yet Mike is wonderful with the humor. It's a shame, Newell inserted, that they didn't have a clip that offered a sampling of the comic genius of Alfred Molina who plays the wonderfully untrustworthy Sheik Amar.

Gyllenhaal was impressed with the "ocean of people" packing WonderCon's Esplanade Ballroom and the thunderous applause, catcalls and whistles let him know how much he was adored by his fans. Boucher asked him if—with a character like Prince Dastan—he prepared for the role by starting with the inside or the outside? Gyllenhaal responded: "I started from the outside first. I'm a physical person and I'm athletic so I started training early, knowing that—if I wanted to make a movie like this—I wanted to pull off the stunts and do the functional action. If I was going to run on walls, I really wanted to run on walls. I tried to figure out how to do that and not get hurt." How could it not be fun to get paid to get in shape and work on a tan?

Every character requires different things and Prince Dastan required working out. With all of the stunts that he had to perform, Jake trained in free running. "We worked very closely with a guy named David Belle who invented parkour. It took a long time to find him because he has no email address or phone number. So we went over the streets of France in a helicopter looking for someone jumping off of buildings and snagged him and brought him over to Morocco. [Gyllenhaal laughs.] No. But at first I worked with a lot of gymnasts. Free running is based a lot on acrobatics and I started working in a gym jumping off of things that were padded and learning how to do the running up to stuff. Then slowly we started working on harder and harder surfaces, very carefully. Then David just started saying eventually at certain points, 'We're going to go from here to here' and then I'd say, 'Okay, I'm going to try it' and then he'd go, 'Oh God, don't please!' and then I would and then I'd get a little bit farther and earn a little respect and David would let me go a little longer, a little farther, a little higher, and we just kept going like that."

Boucher asked if this action hero role was a new sector Gyllenhaal was moving into as an actor. "Yes," Gyllenhaal quipped, "the Jerry Bruckheimer sector. It's a little louder, a little bigger, and a little more fun."

Boucher turned to Jordan Mechner and asked—having created the game and watched it evolve over the years—how this moment of the game becoming a blockbuster film felt? "Considering that it started with a character on the Apple 2 computer that was three pixels high, moving from that to Jake is pretty incredible," Mechner answered. The video game of Prince of Persia became something of a phenomenon on its own. Mechner was fresh out of college, home for the summer, and inspired by such swashbuckling Hollywood films of the 1940s as Thief of Bagdad. He had his brother put on a pair of baggy pajamas and they went to the high school parking lot where Mechner had his brother run and jump and do all sorts of actions, which he videotaped. He put the videotape through the computer and the game was born. Gyllenhaal inserted: "That's how I trained for the movie too! It was just me and a baggy pair of pajamas."

Newell attested to being familiar with the video game because of his 14-year-old son who—though he has played the game—finds it a little too early historically to be of interest. Currently his son prefers fighting the Reichstag in the second world war. Privvy to the new version of Prince of Persia that's about to come out, Newell played the game as much as he was able, though he was "absolutely hopeless" and fell into revolving knives every game.

Bruckheimer is not an avid gamer, admittedly busy developing TV shows and movies all over the world; but, thanks to Jordan Mechner he became familiar with the game, loved its devices and characters, and the Shakespearean touches Newell brought to the drama throughout.

Gyllenhaal stated he played the original sidescrolling videogame that Mechner invented. "Who knew how our fates would meet so many years later?" He admitted there was definite pressure in adapting the game to film because he knows how important the game is to so many people and how much fun people have had playing the game for decades. There have been so many incarnations of the game. "It's been reborn and reborn and reborn again, which is a testament to Mechner's brother's pajamas, y'know? So definitely there's pressure there. But it's exciting too to try and reinvent the character in a new way for a different genre of entertainment. It's great fun, y'know? And my boots, by the way, speaking literally, took 20 minutes every day to put on so they were hard boots to get on and to fill."

They next showed a sizzler reel wherein Jake's character discovers the power of the dagger: it can turn back time. Newell wanted to give the impression that—by doing that—the body of whoever is handling the dagger is dissolved to its constitutent atoms, and then built back up again a little earlier in time.

Newell described some of the other characters in the film. British actress Gemma Arterton plays Tamina, the princess of the great cult that guards the Sands of Time, which are a natural force of destruction. Should the Sands of Time get out of their imprisoning glass container, they could potentially destroy the world. It's her business to make sure that doesn't happen. The only thing that can ward off the destructive onslaught of the Sands of Time is the dagger itself. Of course, Tamina falls in love with Prince Dastan, which Newell admitted is what he would have done if he'd been in the same place.

Reluctant to say too much about Nizam, Ben Kingsley's character, for fear that it would spoil too much, Newell characterized him cautiously as "a serpentine character." Newell always said to Kingsley, "Ben, we have to make two movies with you. We have to make a movie they think they're seeing and we have to make a movie that you know you're making"; but, Newell advised his audience that they wouldn't be able to really disentangle that until they see the film.

"One of the great comic turns of our times is Alfred Molina who plays Sheik Amar," Newell went on. "He's on the side of the angels at the end, but if he can see his way to a little profit as he goes, he will. So he's a rogue with a good heart." Then, of course, there is a "whole range of wonderful characters" including princes, and a marvelous villain, an Icelandic actor named Gísli Örn Garðarsson who plays the Vizier, the chief Hassansin.

Describing his character Prince Dastan, Gyllenhaal stated Dystan had "the difficult challenge of being able to take the situation at hand as seriously as it is possible to be taken when you have a dagger that turns back time, you have magic snakes that come out of your arms chasing you, and at the same time have fun while he's doing it. He has a wry sense of humor, which I appreciate about him. In the first draft of the script I read, he was a strong fighter who would face each challenge in front of him with a sense of fun. He also likes to jump off of things. He likes to fight with his fists and his swords. And he also likes princesses."

Having played a few roles related to time travel, Gyllenhaal was asked if time travel was of personal interest to him? He responded affirmatively: "Whether it's conscious or unconscious, I have a real issue with time. I might not be alone in that. And I'm fascinated with how it works in telling stories. There are so many opportunities when you can move forward and backward and when characters are unaware that they're moving forward or backward. That's fascinating. And anyone who knows anything about time continuums knows that we probably don't necessarily only move forward." As to where he would travel back in time if he could, Gyllenhaal said he would be interested in traveling back to his birth. "I'd love to see what that was like." Boucher remarked, "That's weird, Jake. I'd like to travel back in time before you said that."

Asked what convinced him to shift from his more usual dramatic roles to choose an action role, Gyllenhaal answered, "Well, all of my peers seem to be getting into it so I thought maybe it's time. I love big action adventure movies, I really do, Indiana Jones is one of my favorite movies. Jordan was influenced by movies like that, and it felt somehow great to mix all of these interests and all of these movies that I love so much."

Mechner was the first to admit that not every video game should become a movie; but, Prince of Persia leant itself well to the enterprise for many reasons. First, it's set in a fantastical world of the One Thousand and One Nights that hasn't been brought to the screen in a long time and certainly not on the scale undertaken by Bruckheimer and Newell. Second, to have a dagger that turns back time, who wouldn't want to turn back time? And that's the heart of the story.

Newell related that he came to adore Mechner while filming Prince of Persia. Mechner would wander around the set with a notebook. He didn't write a diary, he drew a diary of what was happening each day, which Newell thought was wonderful. But what he loved most about him was that he was an absolute research freak. Everything in the game and everything in the film script—for which he wrote the first draft—was researched on the basis of what it was actually like in 6th century Persia, what was around, what the technologies were, what the belief systems were, all that wonderful research.

Despite its rich visuals, Bruckheimer did not film Prince of Persia in 3D and—when asked why—admitted it was because James Cameron's Avatar hadn't yet come out. Until then, most 3D films were animated films. They considered re-editing it in 3D but it was too costly. Further, the cameras that were available at the time were not as advanced as those of today to take out into the desert. Had they decided to shoot the film in 3D, they would probably still be shooting today.

Cross-published on Twitch.

WONDERCON 2010—A Nightmare On Elm Street

The poster for the reboot of the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise welcomes us to a new nightmare, and the cast of that new nightmare—Jackie Earle Haley (in his highly-anticipated incarnation of Freddy Krueger), Katie Cassidy, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, and Thomas Dekker—were welcomed by Geoff Boucher of the L.A. Times to their WonderCon 2010 panel.

Of course, the obvious question hovering in the air was what it's been like for Haley to become Freddy, a recognized cinema icon lovingly created by Robert Englund over 20 years ago? "It's a scary process," Haley admitted. "It's tough to take on a character that one guy has played. Robert Englund has done an incredible job. Wes Craven created this character and Englund is the only actor who has played him over the decades. So, yes, it's a bit scary and daunting; but, these guys were going to re-envision the film and start over so they were looking for a new Freddy. I can't tell you how exciting it was to be offered the role. The first thing I heard was that you guys were suggesting me for the part"—Haley gestured to his audience—"I guess some of you must think I'm a little creepy or something? I don't know what's up with that; but, it was a trip and an honor to play such an iconic character, especially after playing such an iconic character as Rorschach in Watchmen."

Englund's original interpretation of Freddy Kreuger was a mixture of menace and wicked black humor and Haley was asked if his interpretation would retain that sense of humor? "We're a little darker and a little bit more serious," Haley responded. "There's a bit of humor but not as much." Boucher noted that as the various chapters of the Nightmare franchise evolved, more and more comic elements came into Englund's performance of Freddy as time went along and opined that it would be difficult to reboot a franchise starting off with such a comic take.

As for what elements of the original he incorporated into his performance, Haley said, "I actually saw the original in the theater in the early '80s. I remember seeing the trailers and the film at the time. I rewatched it, but I made a point of not watching them all because I knew that the first one—from my recollection—was a bit different than the others, it was more serious. I watched the original to take a look at the tone and what went on there, what Robert had done, and it wasn't so much like, 'Let me see how I can incorporate that into what I'm doing' as it was to re-see and re-apprise myself of what the film was. I felt it was important for me to play this character where there was still something familiar about him—because he has so many fans of, obviously, the hat, the glove, the sweater—but, to do it in such a way that I could still be able to own it, to make it my own." Aware of just how much the Nightmare franchise is a part of American pop culture—"a sick part of our culture but a fun part nonetheless"—Haley likens it unto the campfire story that's been in circulation 100+ years. "Nightmare on Elm Street is a special one of that ilk, and Freddy Kreuger is a special character, and I for one am really excited to introduce him to existing fans but also to a whole new generation."

Having now played an admittedly creepy sex offender in Little Children, and the morally ambiguous Rorschach in Watchmen, and now a slasher villain in Nightmare, Haley discerns that—though a commonality of creepiness can be ascribed to his characters—for him, they require diverse approaches. "I like them all in different ways. Ronnie [from Little Children] is the most real of the group. They're all satisfying in different kinds of ways. Watchmen was such an incredible comic book. For me it was fascinating because I had never been a comics fan and that book was what introduced me to that world. It was cool just to become a fan of it. Getting to play that character was tough in a whole different kind of way because I was isolated a bunch and would run everything through a filter in my head and I came out of that experience a little bit cynical. But it was such a different energy.

"Working on Nightmare, I started down this road when Sam [Bayer, the film's director] sent me the script and—not with anything specific in mind—we were looking together for a way for me to access the part. He sent me this big book on serial killers and so I started to go through that and get into the minds of these guys. I focused on Ed Kemper. By the way, this actor's work on studying the mind of a serial killer is not fun work. The mind of a serial killer is a messed-up mind. But while I was doing this I noticed there was a movie on Ed Kemper so I thought, 'Let's go check this out' so I brought it up on YouTube and it was a slasher movie. It pissed me off; but, it was at that moment that I realized I was playing a bogeyman and that I really needed to embrace playing this mythical bogeyman, this character from a campfire story. I still wanted to embrace his human side and define what made him tick and go after him in that way; but, it was neat to discover early on that this wasn't an exercise about getting into the mind of a serial killer. It was an exercise in embracing this monster, this bogeyman."

The make-up was particularly challenging for Haley. "Once all the artistic decisions were made for the day's shoot, then the process of putting on make-up was a mere 3½ hours and an hour to get out of it, and that was even before stepping onto the set."

Curious if Haley had to put in a lot of practice to master his glove, he described that it took only a little bit of time to put it on. First it snapped on and then the screws were secured with a screwdriver and, basically, he kept it on for long periods of time and had plenty of opportunity to work with it. "Luckily, I never stabbed anybody and never cut my face or anything." Kyle Gallner—who plays Quentin—interrupted Haley to remind him that during one of their sequences Haley actually sliced him on his stomach a bit. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that," Haley grinned, "Sorry."

Rooney Mara—who has taken over the role of Nancy Thompson (originally portrayed by Heather Langenkamp)—revealed: "Our Nancy's slighter darker than the original Nancy. She's a tortured, lonely soul trying to figure out what's happening to her."

Thomas Dekker said the role of Jesse was offered to him no less than a day or two after he finished shooting All About Evil here in San Francisco when he returned home to Los Angeles. Familiar with the original, he didn't even bother reading the script. He saw the title and knew he wanted to do it. As for what he felt about the hazards of doing a remake of such a classic film, he countered, "Remakes and reboots are very tricky subjects and they're very hard to do because you don't want to piss off the people who loved the original and yet you want to give birth to something that new people are going to love, and they're always going to be in opposition. However, when the script is written well and you have great actors—all these folks are incredible—I feel confident and do believe that all of you who are here because you love this franchise will not be disappointed. I'm adverse to remakes and yet this one is great. We have a great product and I think that all we cared about was keeping the faith of all of you."

Kyle Gallner concurred: "It's a franchise that's been loved by so many people for so long that—when you take it on your shoulders—you don't want to screw things up. You want to pay homage to the original but you also want to have the balls to make it your own and not do a frame-for-frame remake. We want to show you something you haven't seen, technology's different, visual effects are different."

Cross-published on Twitch.

WONDERCON 2010—Kick-Ass

WonderCon—San Francisco's sibling response to San Diego's ComicCon—roused thousands of fans to the George Moscone Convention Center this Easter weekend on the hunt for more than chocolate eggs. My favorite is always Movies Saturday where thousands pour into the Esplanade Ballroom to get their first glimpse of upcoming blockbusters while listening to creative talent pitch their films panel after panel. I park myself in my front row seat at about 10:30 in the morning and don't leave until the early evening because—once you leave the Ballroom—good luck getting back in!

WonderCon's Kick-Ass panel included comic book creator John Romita, Jr., screenwriter Jane Goldman, and cast members Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson, Chloë Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Clark Duke, moderated by HitFix.

The HitFix moderator noted that—in contrast to Dave Gibbon's reaction to having his graphic novel The Watchmen transposed to cinema after the fact—John Romita, Jr. and Mark Millar had a nearly opposite experience; their comic book wasn't even completed before they began working with Matthew Vaughn, effecting a cross-pollination between the book and the movie. He wondered how Vaughn got his hands on the story and what it was like for Romita and Millar to go through the experience with Vaughn simultaneously?

Romita quipped that—being Sicilian—"bribery and threats" worked well for him. Vaughn was in need of a project and Millar—who ran into him at a party—mentioned to Vaughn that he and Romita had successfully worked together remounting Wolverine and were working on another interesting project. Up for the gamble, Romita joined Millar in publishing their comic Kick-Ass under Marvel's Icon imprint, even as they began developing Vaughn's film. Romita praised Vaughn for having "good taste in comics" and for recognizing a quality story when he read it. By directing an animated flashback sequence in the film, Romita earned his directorial debut alongside his scribal credits.

In a world where most people get bullied upon and get their asses kicked, Romita was asked how he felt about delivering a fantasy that turns that situation on its head? "I can tell you what Mark Millar initially said," Romita answered, "that's exactly what he did when he was a kid: exercised, took martial arts classes, and planned to get a costume because he wanted to fight crime. He claims that's what he wanted to do. I think everybody in this room probably fantasized about that." When Millar first approached Romita with the project, he admitted it was a risk but offered a 12-year-old bottle of scotch if Romita could finish the script on time. Romita didn't, so he didn't get the scotch, but from the moment Millar sent him the first synopsis—and, at that time, the character of Kick-Ass wasn't even involved; it was just Big Daddy and Hit Girl—Romita enjoyed it. "Mark is out of his mind and that's the fun of it. It morphed into what it is. So it's working with Mark and working with that story that was just amazing."

When screenwriter Jane Goldman and Vaughn decided to go with Romita and Millar's unfinished comic book, it was a huge act of faith on their part because they had no way of knowing how the comic book—thereby, their movie—would end. Irregardless, Goldman was attracted to the idea of superheroes without superpowers, which—much to her surprise—hadn't been fully explored. The fact that the movie industry has been plundering the comic book characters that have been around for quite a long time encouraged her and Matthew to work from the angle of a completely fresh character.

Of course, the character of Hit Girl—the child assassin who has elicited some controversy for her colorful language—was a special challenge for Goldman, who is no stranger to controversy. The mother of two daughters, Goldman felt the character of Mindy McReady (aka Hit Girl) was a strong female role, precisely because she was pre-teen and a nonsexualized female character. That combination is almost unheard of in contemporary cinema where a sexy woman with a gun is considered to be a strong female role, which Goldman doesn't believe it is at all. It was that combination of youth and vigilante activism that struck her first, rather than the idea that people might be outraged. Further, audiences are used to seeing women and children as the victims of violence. Surely it's less offensive to see them kick off violence? As much as people might complain about linking a pre-teen girl with so much violence, anyone who sees the film and situates the character in its context, in its humor, never seems to complain.

As for whether or not she felt there was any place that went "too far" in the writing, something she felt she needed to pull back from, or whether she felt inclined to push all the tropes of the superhero as far as she could, Goldman offered that she always knew the film was intended for an adult audience; but, that being said, she never wanted to push further than the spirit of the comic, she wanted to be true to it, and tell the story as it had been told.

The readily identifiable and "delicious touchstones" Nicolas Cage has built into his portrayal of Damon Macready (aka Big Daddy), are character-driven, including Big Daddy's mask, and especially his belt. Cage remembered that when Matthew Vaughn first showed him his character's yellow belt, he instantly sourced it to the 1960s Batman TV series as the belt Adam West wore. Vaughn confirmed that's exactly what it was and asked Cage if he thought they could pull it off? Not only did Cage think they could pull it off, he felt the belt was one of the coolest things about Big Daddy's character. Not only did he decide he was going to wear it, but he decided Big Daddy should talk like Adam West in the TV series. West delivered his lines in staccato rhythm in odd inflections that didn't quite go together.

Cage added that everyone loves comic books because they're like the myths of our times; they give people power. There are people that go out and wear Batman t-shirts underneath their cop uniforms or Superman t-shirts underneath their paramedic uniforms because that's what gives them the guts to go in and get the job done. Cage figured that it was somewhat the same for Big Daddy: mimicing Adam West's portrayal of Batman gave him the guts to fight crime. Cage also remembered dating a girl many years ago whose father was a cop and he always wore these sunglasses and had that moustache that a lot of cops wear and he always called his daughter "child", which Cage thought was strange. He thought of Damon Macready as being like that guy.

Cage recalled that he learned to read at the age of four-six with comic books. "I would read Stan Lee's stories and the words were so interesting. I learned words like 'opaque' and 'inexorable' when I was six. So I've always had a soft spot in my heart for comic books. I don't want to mislead you. I don't want you to think that's all I read or that I'm on a steady diet of comics as I speak here today, but I think my interest in comic book characters is when they fall within the realm of the supernatural. I like characters that are supernatural like City of Angels [1998, based on Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire (1987)] or Ghost Rider [2007], because when you play a supernatural character, the possibilities are limitless. We're talking about infinity, imagination, you can do anything almost, you're not stuck in a context of reality, whatever that is. So comic books lend themselves to that. That's what it is. They have a big impact. People respond to myths. Comic books give us that power." Asked which superhero he would like to be, Cage responded, "I'd be the Silver Surfer so I could fly through the universe and beat up Superman" to which Mintz-Plasse quipped: "I'd be Galactus, so the Silver Surfer could feed me planets."

Asked what made him go for the role of Big Daddy, Cage responded that as an actor he feels he has the mind of a student, he's always learning. "I can't always sing the songs that I love because it's too easy," he said. "Sometimes I have to sing songs that make me uncomfortable, that take me out of my comfort zone, so I can learn something, right? I wanted to do Macready because I didn't know how I was going to get around shooting a 12-year-old girl in the chest. It made me a little uncomfortable so I figured I'd better do it." As challenging as he found the role, it ended up being a joy for him because he got to work with Aaron Johnson and Chloë Moretz "and these guys are as good as it gets," he praised. Since he's been around for over 30 years now, Cage tries to learn when he works with different generations of actors. Working with the current generation of actors keeps him relevant. The minute he met Chloë and began working with her, he knew she was destined to become a star because of her charisma and confidence. Immediately they began riffing off each other and there was no question in his mind that the chemistry would work.

As for his favorite scene in the film? Cage didn't miss a beat: "My favorite scene in the movie, hands down, is when Aaron takes on the three hoodlums and he says something like 'I'm the guy who will take on three guys who are picking on one guy.' He said it with such conviction that I realized at that moment that was his superpower, it was as simple as that. When you see the movie, you're going to ask yourself, 'Would you do it? Would you have that level of guts?' I think a lot of us have been in that situation and wondered whether to jump in or not. That moment inspired me."

When asked about how he'd trained for his role of Dave Lizewski (aka Kick-Ass), British newcomer Aaron Johnson admitted he mainly just ran around in circles waving his arms. Both he and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (as Red Mist) basically sat back and watched Chloë Moretz do all the action. Both of them got their asses kicked more than kicking any ass. Mintz-Plasse added that—when he first read the script—it was bloody and violent and funny, "and that's everything that I want to see in a movie." He auditioned and read for the role of Kick-Ass, and Matthew Vaughn hated him right off, but offered him the role of Red Mist on the spot. As for Red Mist's look: "They were going for David Bowie. I thought it was more Rihanna, really. I got Christopher Lambert once but I refused to agree with that!"

Because she dropped the "F-bomb" in the film, let alone talked about giant cocks in the sky, Chloë Moretz was asked how her parents reacted to her performance in this role? Her mother read the script before Chloë and thought the role was awesome and unique and synched to how young kids play. She handed the script to Chloë, fully aware: "Who wouldn't want to play Hit Girl?" Chloë's favorite scene in the film is the one time you see Hit Girl become an 11-year-old girl. You enjoy seeing her kick ass and kill and root for her to do so; but, when she sees her dad in trouble, she realizes it's not a game they're playing anymore, it's real-life, and you see her become a little girl worried about her dad.

Clark Duke—who plays Dave's best friend Marty in the film—helped Aaron a bit with his American accent; but joked: "I'm Aaron's life coach, actually, I focus on health and nutrition." Duke, incidentally, has been receiving great reviews for his comic role as Jacob in Hot Tub Time Machine and his comic talent was readily apparent onstage as he shamelessly pitched for a costume of his own in the Kick-Ass sequel, which—rumor has it—Mark Millar has confirmed.

I'll be the first to admit that Nicolas Cage is not one of my favorite actors. Along with some admirable work, he's done a lot of big budget dreck. But I never wish him ill will, and am glad that Kick-Ass and The Sorcerer's Apprentice have helped him back into the limelight. He's genuinely funny as Big Daddy in Kick-Ass. He came off quite gracious on both the Kick-Ass and Sorcerer's Apprentice WonderCon panels, despite sounding like Howlin' Wolf (he had laryngitis from an allergic reaction to location shooting in Louisiana). Clearly the big draw of this weekend's WonderCon, I respected how Cage deferred to the performances of his co-workers in both films, in contrast to the grandstanding of some of the younger actors who one might criticize haven't learned to share the stage yet. Case in point would be Aaron Johnson who seemed visibly petulant that he didn't have a name card, and grumbled that his presence didn't "fucking matter." He grabbed Nicolas Cage's name card and said he would be Nicolas Cage. Cage opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and stayed silent, which amused his audience. It takes a touch of class, and years of experience, to know that each young actor has to learn how to carry themselves in public. Johnson's next project will be the upcoming thriller Chatroom, directed by Japanese filmmaker Hideo Nakata (Ringu, Dark Water).

Cross-published on Twitch.