Up in the air! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a frequently delayed superhero movie directed by an idiosyncratic arthouse fave and starring a (formerly) pudgy, foul-mouthed, fart-based stoner! Director Michel Gondry and stars Seth Rogen, along with everyone's favorite Nazi, Christopher Waltz, are hitting Comic-Con to explain to everyone that, no, no, Ryan Reynolds is in the Green Lantern.
Fire up the Black Beauty and come join me as I liveblog their Comic-Con panel (and probably constantly accidentally type Green Horny a thousand times) starting NOW.
5:39 And we've begun! Seth Rogen is on stage and cops to the Lantern/Hornet confusion but admits that Ryan Reynolds can "kick my ass."
5:40 The relationship between Britt and Kato, the relationship of "two dudes," as Rogen put it, is the draw for the movie for both Seth and for director Michel Gondry. The Green Hornet as a bro-mance movie, who knew?
5:45 Producer Neal Moritz blames the push of the film back to the hinterlands of January on wanting to do a really awesome 3D conversion, claiming that he hates shoddily done conversion. So if the 3D sucks as bad as The Last Airbender, it's not for lack of time.
5:47 Bad news for the film in my very unscientific view: I'm sitting towards the back of Hall H and ever since the Green Hornet panel began, people have streaming out of here. Rut-row, Raggy!
5:50 They showed a brief 3D clip from the movie, a fight scene that takes place outside of a cemetery. And...it's not bad! Gondry really makes it seem like a stereophonic film, and the 3D seems pretty solid, with different people moving at different frame rates and playing with different perspective. It's the first time I've had spittle fly at me in the third dimension.
5:55 Seth Rogen explains the difference between writing and acting -- "Writing means you don't have to shave or lose weight. So I like that."
5:57 Rogen sympathizes with a Comic-Conner who's dressed as Kato: "Man, those masks are horrible aren't they? You develop a weird rash of pimples right around the edges and mine was just drenched with sweat by the end of the day."
6:00 A bunch of car companies vied for a chance to build and update the Black Beauty (the Hornet's ride), Rogen revealed, but Gondry et al turned them all down, opting to stay with the original 1965 Chrysler.
6:06 Christoph Waltz has a confession -- he had never heard of the Green Hornet before this movie and is, in fact, not a fan of "the comics." But he begs for forgiveness from the audience. Aww, I can't stay mad at this lovable Nazi.
6:09 Seth did his research before embarking on the movie -- and even lifted a few plot points from the old radio shows. Old radio show writers, contact your old-timey lawyers!
6:15 And that's the end! Hope they can convince more people to pay to see the movie than they could to stay in Hall H for free. Bon chance, Michel!