SDCC News – GREEN LANTERN, HARRY POTTER And SUCKER PUNCH
Written by Skott Stoland on 07/24/2010 – 5:09 PM -Warner Bros weirdly decided to combine several panels that could have stood on their own, the Green Lantern film, Harry Potter, and Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch. Well, two of them probably could have.
The panel starts off with right away with the moderator, Jeff Boucher of the LA Times, reciting the Green Lantern oath and Geoff Johns commenting that he’s “super, super excited, this is the first Green Lantern movie panel in history.”
Then they immediately kick in to footage. The description from SuperHeroHype.
It’s essentially a teaser which starts off with a glowing green ball and an alien voiceover that says:
“Welcome inhabitants of sector 2814. The Guardians have chosen you as candidates for enlistment but before you can be recruited, you must be tested. The light you see before you is controlled by your will. Focus on the light. If you will it, it will be. Now, focus.”
That ball of green light continues to pulse and get larger and larger before it blasts the screen with a wave of green light.
We then hear Reynolds’ voiceover saying the Green Lantern oath and a quick montage of footage cut together that went by very fast, including a close-up of Reynolds as Hal Jordan, his hand holding the ring, we see him in street clothes being pulled upwards and see a later scene in which he’s taking on criminals by using the ring to form a giant fist that throws a roundhouse punch knocking out a bunch of guys. We get a very brief glimpse of Hector Hammond and Tomar Re. (We presume that the voiceover was Abin Sur, but we’re not sure.)
After the oath is done, we hear the original alien voiceover saying, “The choice has been made.”
The light we saw earlier starts forming into the GL emblem and then we see the logo is “Await Further Contact Summer 2011.”
Damn.
Reynolds says why he was attracted to the role. It was because he gets to throw a punch, tell a joke, and kiss the girl. He’s hoping for a franchise, 2 or 3 more movies.
Director Martin Campbell says the tone of the movie is fun; There’s humor, but the action is still real, and the character’s relationships are real. So it’ll probably be Iron Man-ish. Campbell says that this is his first superhero movie, “Unless you count James Bond, but he’s nothing like Green Lantern.”
Campbell explains the costume, which gets quite a reaction from the crowd, “The costume is always a work in progress. We have the black and green, and we lost the white gloves. We felt it looked cooler and far more interesting without them. There are certain lines on the costume, and it’s more like a skin on GL than a costume. The lines are all lines of musculature, which our designer came up with. It is a work in progress. It will eventually look incredibly cool.”
Thankfully, this not be an entirely Earth-based film (which we knew, but) we will see Hal go to Oa and we’ll get to see the 3600 Green Lanterns. Of course, there will be the ones you’re expecting, like Kilowog, but The Green Man and Bzzd were mentioned specifically as well. So, now I really have my fingers crossed for Ch’p and G’nort.
Geoff Johns tells an insane story about how 10 years ago they tried making a Green Lantern movie and the first thing the studio asked “Can we make the movie without the ring?” Johns was sure that there’s never be Green Lantern film.
Boucher asks Reynolds, “Your wife is a Marvel character… does that cause any strife?”
Reynolds answers, “Well, we probably have more comic books lying around then other married couples … although that might not be true for this crowd.” This question certainly strikes me as odd, given that Reynolds is also two Marvel characters.
Blake Lively describes Carol Ferris as a strong character and says that, “The best part of getting this job was getting to call my nephews to tell them I was going to be in a superhero movie.” She then adds, “Of course, Carol becomes a villain later, and I can’t wait to kick his butt.”
Reynolds describes his Green Lantern audition. He screen tested a couple of times, and contrary to internet speculation, “They made me work for it.”
He went for it because, “I saw this guy who is arrogant and cocky in the film who is given this amazing gift, and that becomes humbling for him. I thought that was a great arc for a character in a superhero film.”
Martin Campbell on Hal’s Father, “Martin Jordan, Hal’s father, dies at the beginning of the film in a plane crash, and Hal is there when this happens. It affects him very much, for the rest of his life. It’s important to him becoming a fully-fledged Green Lantern.”
When someone from the audience asks if Mogo will be in the movie, Johns coyly answers, “There’s a lot of Green Lanterns in the movie.”
The Green Lantern portion of the panel ends with Ryan Reynolds giving his Lantern ring to someone in the audience.
“It’s been with me for the last six months. As you know, these are passed on from one Green Lantern to another. I think it would be fitting if I passed this on to an audience member in the crowd.”
There’s a piece of paper taped to someone’s seat and that person gets the ring. Reynolds then tells them, “This means we’re married. But like in Space.”
For the Harry Potter part of the presentation, Tom Felton comes out and talks about how much fun he’s had doing the series. “It’s been an incredible 10 years, so thank you very much.”
He goes on to say, “This started when I was 12, it’s been an incredible journey. These last two films… everyone has put literally everything into it. I’m excited to see the footage we’re about to see.” Then he introduces some footage. From ComingSoon.
The footage shared played like an extended trailer for the pair of movies and opened with a mirror shard falling to the ground following by a profiled shot of Harry. Voice-over during the shots is Voldemort speaking about the people who have died and those who have suffered as a result of Harry. During the speech, shots of Dumbledore and other. The voice-over closes with Voldemort saying that he will “punish every last man, woman and child that tries to conceal you from me.”
It switches to the familar scene in the forest with Voldemort and all of the Death Eaters when Harry arrives… and Voldemort’s now famous line – “Harry Potter. The boy who live, come to die…” Then you see a bit of the wand duel in the forest. The scene then shifts to fast cuts that include dragons, the trip through Gringotts… and what looked like several Harry Potters standing with each other and various scenes of the epic final battle.
Next is a voice over from property newcomer Bill Nighy playing new Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour who promises his loyals that “Your Ministry remains strong!”
Flash to a scene in a diner with the famous three – Harry, Hermione and Ron – discussing their next moves when they draw wands to defend themselves against an attack from a pair of other diner patrons.
Next, a scene at a long table with the Death Eaters sitting around it and Voldemort sitting at the head. Snape is there, giving Voldemort details of the whereabouts of Harry. Voldemort then reminds the group that he ‘must be the one to kill Harry Potter.’
Fast cuts lead to the famous three, looking haggard and in hiding. Ron is yelling at Harry. Ron has been listening to the radio every night to make sure he doesn’t hear that any of his family has died in the war. Harry barks back “Don’t you think I’ve been listening too!’ Ron nastily reminds Harry that his family is already dead and the two being to fight.
More fast action cuts which included a voice over about the demise of Minster of Magic. Then wand play with Bellatrix LeStrange… more fighting in the woods… in the sky on brooms and a shot of Harry’s end fight with Voldemort.
Felton chooses a number to give away a prize that they don’t say what it is, and that is the end of the Potter stuff.
Seriously.
Next up is Sucker Punch. If you don’t know what this is, it’s Zack Snyder’s upcoming film about a girl in a mental institution who creates a fantasy world to help her escape. It’s filled with hot women and giant mechs with pink bunny faces and it looks awesome.
The actresses come out and they show show some footage. Again from ComingSoon.
The footage begins with Emily Browning’s character Baby Doll’s eyes opening and the title card “Close Your Eyes” and Scott Glenn’s voice asking “What are you looking for?” and then we hear Carla Gugino’s Polish accent telling Baby Doll, “ush thourgh your fear to find your own paradise.” Gugino’s voiceover does a count-off… “1… 2… 3… 4″ then we hear the opening drums of Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and we see Scott Glenn as Baby Doll’s stepfather driving a large old car with Baby Doll in the passenger seat as the car drives into the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane in Brattleboro, Vermont here he commits his stepdaughter. We then see lots of scenes of Baby Doll in the insane asylum being introduced to Gugino’s Madame Gorsky, who says, “What you’re imagining now, you control this own world.” Baby Doll closes her eyes again and the insane asylum transforms into a brothel/dancehall where all the female patients are prostitutes. (The original footage is very muted almost black and white, a bit like Sin City, but in the world where it’s a brothel, it’s a lot more bright and colorful. Gugino says, “Your fight for survival stars right now.” and we see a slow-motion snowflake falling on Baby Doll’s eyelash and the footage turned into an insane fast-paced montage of some of the different worlds where Baby Doll and some of the other girls of the brothel visit in order to get different items. Each of the girls has a dance number and there are four different worlds where they visit, all of which we saw brief glimpses of the footage including samurai battles. They also have a WWI sequence where they’re fighting in the trenches and one of the girls gets to ride a giant manga-inspired Mecha while shooting down biplanes. This really was some insane stuff that went by very fast with so many images that it probably be very hard for any of it to register.
One of the prison officers tells Baby Doll, “I’m going to give you freedom, freedom from pain, guilt, regret” and then we see John Hamm, who plays a john at the brothel and he makes a sleezy comment: “Did you see the way she looked at me?”
As the fast footage continued, the title cards came up with the words, “You Will Be Unprepared “
Most of the panel is spent talking about how bad-ass the characters the actresses played are, which to be fair, they really do seem to be.
Snyder hopes to get a PG-13 rating for the film, but before you get all “Oh no! It needs to be R to be Awesome!”, keep in mind that the the girls are killing monsters and zombies in the fantasy world. And as Snyder says, “We have a lot of fantasy-style creatures in here that are getting mowed down. If you’ve heard of a little movie called Lord of the Rings, they killed a lot of orcs in that movie and got a PG-13.”
When they show the footage a second time, the actresses are so excited to see it that they run out into crowd and sit amongst the nerds. So yea, some lucky fanboys got to sit next to them.
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