Finally we reach the climax of Friday night at Comic-Con 2013, the Sony Pictures Panel, featuring Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Robocop and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I (Josh) have divided this panel into 4 parts for easier digestion. Let’s get into it!
The panel prior to this panel was Game of Thrones, which you can read by clicking here.
The Sony Pictures panel took place on Friday, July 19 in Hall H from 4:05pm to 6:15pm, starting with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. The moderator is Ralph Garman, and he begins the panel with a video of the voice cast. The cast is seemingly trying to dress up as their characters’ counterparts. It was a funny video to watch, as certain characters were overjoyed to dress up (Andy Samberg in a giant chicken costume), and others were carefully planning their entrance into the costume (Terry Crews and his undersized cop uniform), while Anna Faris was trying to find a way out of it. The video wraps up, and the cast is brought out by the moderator.
The directors are bought out first (apparently there’s two!) Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. Following them is Terry Crews in a more suitable fitting cop-esce outfit. Following him is Anna Faris, wearing some glasses with big eyes (to match her character). Bill Hader is the final actor brought out. I was hoping for Andy Samberg in his giant chicken costume!
The moderator begins discussion with the directors, indicating they were part of the previous Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The directors worked on the first films as story writers. They also said they had ideas for a sequel, but Cameron and Pearn indicate that when the studio became interested in this sequel, Phil Lord and Chris Miller were directing 21 Jump Street. Cameron and Pearn lucked out though, as the studio approached them to direct it. Their response to the Sony was, they were “dumb enough to say okay”. The film took two and half years to make, as opposed to four years for the first.
The moderator then moves on to the actors, beginning with Bill Hader, who congratulates Hader for his Emmy nomination, which was for Saturday Night Live, which he will be leaving when season 8 is done. Hader is asked what it was like to returning to his role, which is the main character, Flint Lockwood. They discuss the techniques of voice acting, and Hader describes it as, “you scream”, and “it is strange” because he was in a booth by himself. The moderator moves on to Faris, discussing the difference between live action acting and voice-over acting. She discusses the difficulty of voice acting, saying it “requires a certain skill set that you kind of have to learn”, and that “you don’t have any perspective as to what is going on, you have to be walked through everything”.
The moderator moves onto Terry Crews. Crews begins by acknowledging Mr. T’s contribution to the character, who voiced it in the first movie. Crews talks about Sony asking him to step into the role, and how excited he was, and how excited his kids were, but he indicates his children gave him a stern warning: “Don’t mess it [his character] up!” Terry Crews then makes a comparison of his entering the role after Mr. T as being similar to the Batman movies, and the different actors who played that character. Crews certainly reveres Mr. T, going on about him quite a bit.
The directors then give a little insight to the plot of the movie of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) is a scientist, as we learned in the first movie, who turned water into food, which was the precipice for the storyline for the first movie, as his machine went haywire. The directors reveal that the movie will pick up, “literally 60 seconds after” the first movie ended.
The director continues talking about the new cast joining the movie, and talks about Chester (Will Forte), who hires Flint at some laboratory. We are then given a brief clip of the movie, which is a tour of Flint’s new job.
After the clip, the directors talk about the plot, where they learn that Flint’s machine is still causing problems.
Anna Faris and Bill Hader then discuss the coming together of the movie, and as it comes along, it comes together more for them. Faris discusses the 400 person animation team that was working on the film as well. Hader talks about the process of setting the scene for acting, which basically came down to people telling Hader what was going on and he had to act based off their descriptions. Terry talks about his reaction to the different “food monsters” as well.
The directors then talk about developing the “food monsters”, and how they came to making their creatures. Another film clip is introduced, featuring some of the food monsters Flint and company will be meeting up with. The panel wraps up after this film clip, and the next movie will be introduced, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
Here is the trailer for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, which will be released on September 27, 2013:
