Continuing our recap of Saturday of San Diego Comic-Con 2015, following The Hateful Eight panel was the Legendary panel, featuring the films Crimson Peak, Krampus, and Warcraft! Josh provides the recap for this one.
Click here if you missed Part 2 of our Saturday Recap!
Legendary Pictures
After Hateful Eight, Legendary was the next panel. Thomas Tull, who has been at Comic-Con for the past several Legendary Panels, came out on stage and talked about how much Legendary likes coming out to Comic-Con and showing the Hall H-ers special footage. Tull talks about the success of Jurassic World, and he hands the mic to Chris Hardwick for the panel.
Crimson Peak
First to the stage for Legendary was Guillermo Del Toro. Del Toro talks about Crimson Peak, and he talks about the movie being a “Gothic Romance” with a strong female character as the main protagonist.
Hardwick introduces the footage, and we see what is basically an extended look at what we have seen before. The footage we see is pretty creepy, although it doesn’t have too many “jump scares.” The tone of the film seems to be very dark and twisted though, and seems like something that could give nightmares after seeing it. I am not a big horror genre fan, but this feels like something else, and something I am very interested in seeing.
After the trailer, a few of the actors come to the stage: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, and Jessica Chastain. Guillermo Del Toro informs the Hall H-ers that Universal Studios will be having a Crimson Peak themed maze for Halloween Horror Nights. Hardwick throws the questions to the audience pretty quickly.
The first question was about the favorite part of the set, and Hiddleston says that the great hall was breathtaking. The set apparently has a working elevator, and is a few stories. Del Toro loved the bathroom, describing it as “gorgeous.” Jessica Chastain liked her character’s bedroom.
Hiddleston gets another question, asking about the difference between the different directors he has worked with. One thing Hiddleston brings up is the extensive background biography that Del Toro gave him. Hiddleston says that Del Toro has a great imagination, and he really enjoyed working with him. Del Toro talks about his process for creating his films as well, talking about taking the script to table readings, and seeing how everything fits, and reworks things as needed. Del Toro also talks about the biographies he wrote, and how the actors were told to keep these biographies secret from the other actors.
Again, I think Comic-Con did its job with this film, taking a film I think people know little about, and working on getting some buzz for it. I really am interested in seeing this movie, even more, after seeing it at Comic-Con again. For me, Del Toro has been hit and miss, but seems exciting, and I hope it lives up to the hype I got from Comic-Con the past two years.
The extended trailer for Crimson Peak was not released, but here is the trailer that came out a couple months ago:
Krampus
After Crimson Peak, the horror movie Krampus was presented. Michael Doughtery, the director, came out to talk about this horror Christmas movie. Michael talks about Krampus, and a bit behind the lore, who is a “dark Santa” who punishes bad kids for Christmas. Doughtery talks about how he thought it would be fun to make a scary Christmas movie, and says that the basic story of the movie is about children’s dreams that have gone dark because they have sort of lost hope as they have grown up.
Hardwick presents some footage, and it starts off as what would feel like your run of the mill Christmas movie, with the footage playing to the famous Christmas song “Carol the Bells.” Eventually, darker tones in the song begin taking over, and the trailer gets a little more creepy as it goes on, as something comes down the chimney. We don’t get too much really scariness going on, at least that I can remember now, a few days after the exhaustion that Comic-Con is. I personally was not too excited about this panel, so I may have forgotten some tidbits about the trailer presented.
Cast members Toni Collette and Adam Scott are also brought out, and they talk about their experiences filming and how they got their parts. The actors seemed pretty excited about joining the film. Apparently there are some comedy aspects of the film, which sort of makes me wonder if this is going to be like a slash film.
Finishing up the panel, Michael Doughtery describes the film as very character driven, and feels like a “Vacation” movie.
Sadly, I wasn’t really impressed with this panel. I was really just waiting for the next part of the panel, which would be Warcraft. Unfortunately for the panel, I think my feelings were the general sentiment of the audience.
Warcraft
So I have been waiting for this panel for a while as well, as I was pretty impressed with what I had seen at the previous two Comic-Cons. So, since we are moving closer and closer to the release date, I thought this panel would have some pretty exciting information come out. Legendary decided to bring out the big guns on this one, as we saw the curtains for the extended screens slide back.
Director Duncan Jones talks about trying to make a movie that will appeal to the fans and to the average movie-goer. So Hardwick then begins introducing the actors for the movie, and with each actor brought out, a small musical interlude would play, along with a brief video on the screens, and the actor would come out and take a seat. This seemed like it was supposed to be a pretty epic moment, but for me it felt a little awkward and offbeat. It was exciting seeing the characters flashing to the sides of the screen, divided into the two factions of Horde and Alliance, but it just didn’t seem to have the epic feel I would have hoped it did.
The cast members brought out on stage included Travis Fimmel (Anduin Lothar), Dominic Cooper (King Lane Wrynn), Ruth Negga (Lady Taria), Ben Foster (Medivh), Ben Schnetzer (Khadgar), Toby Kebbell (Durotan), Robert Kazinsky (Orgrim), Paula Patton (Garona), Daniel Wu (Gul’Dan), and Clancy Brown (Blackhand).
The actors talk a bit about their experience on the film, and what is funny is that the actors playing Alliance/Human characters had an easier time filming because the orcs only had to wear motion capture equipment, while the humans had to wear full suits of armor. One thing I didn’t really like about the panel though, was how each actor talked about playing their character. Most of the actors seemed a bit stiff, as if they were provided talking points to hit. I am sure all actors are told a bit of what to say, but it seemed very apparent with a couple of the guys on this panel.
One of the actors, Robert Kazinsky, had a pretty funny story though. He talks about how World of Warcraft consumed his life, and ended what was a good relationship, but now that he is starring in the movie, he feels like he got the last laugh. It was a pretty funny, yet sad story, I thought. Another of the actors, Daniel Wu, tells a pretty funny story about his wife wanting him to take some time off from acting to help take care of their young baby, but when she found out he had a part in Warcraft, she demanded that he take the part.
So the panel rounds out with a pretty lengthy clip of Warcraft, where we see the Horde struggling to save their world, and eventually making their way through the Dark Portal to save their civilization, and eventually running into the humans. We start to see the tensions that begin to rise on both sides, and get some basic introductions to some of the main characters on both sides.
The panel wrapped up after that, and it seemed the response to the trailer was a bit lukewarm. I have to agree that I was feeling about the same as the room I think, and for me, the reason was that the film felt too “game cinematic” to me. In my opinion, for a movie to transcend the video genre, into a mainstream movie, it has to figure out a way to feel original, even from its own video game basis. Unfortunately, the heavy CGI feel of this movie didn’t differentiate it enough from the video game itself. I also am not particularly impressed with the cast, and am a bit surprised that the cast is so young for the most part. I would have thought the age spectrum would have been a little wider for the film.
In the end, I am still very excited for the movie, but I have to say, my feelings have been a little tempered by what I saw in Hall H on Saturday.
Click here for Part 4 of our Saturday Recap of San Diego Comic-Con 2015, featuring the Women Who Kick Ass panel and Dark Horse: An Afternoon with Joss Whedon!
