For the past few years I've had the honor of joining the annual Masters of the Web panel at Comic-Con, a confab of journalists and bloggers from the online film community sharing our experiences in web journalism, troll-taming, geek-baiting, etc. This year I'll be returning to the panel, joined by a gaggle of fine web masters and mistresses... along with a special guest moderator: Karl Urban, star of Dredd 3-D. (Hit the jump for a chance to snag tickets to a special just-announced Comic-Con Dredd 3-D screening.)
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In Tuesday morning's round up of news briefs, Paramount offered kind words for Tom Cruise. Warner Bros is readying an outdoor free Comic-Con experience coinciding with the event; The Amazing Spider-Man is poised to do record box office domestically with its Tuesday release; The Butler adds an additional cast member and Fandango eyes a record quarter.
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In the immortal words of Blue Oyster Cult's Buck Dharma, “history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.” He was singing about Godzilla and we're speaking about him, too, as Hollywood has decided to lay another bet on the city-stompin' monster from the Far East.
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In Thursday's round up of news briefs, News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch made it official that his media empire will be divided into two companies. Also this morning, skateboarding doc Waiting for Lightning headed for distribution, The Amazing Spider-Man gets a big release in one giant Asian country and the Men In Black brand readies for transformation.
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Those marketing gurus at Fox are going to make sure you keep talking about Ridley Scott's Prometheus all summer, as a new viral video has been unveiled that highlights, testimonial-style, how awesome it is to work for the good folks at Weyland Corp. The way this scientist chick talks about Weyland's envelope-pushing embracing of new technologies makes it sound like the best corporation to work at since Pixar, only with more semi-feeling anthropomorphic robots running around the place making sh*t happen.
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Morgan Spurlock's latest documentary Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope plants a sloppy, moist kiss on the sweaty brow of geek culture's premiere event. Where it stops short from also getting on its knees and offering a different sort of sloppy, moist service to the four-day San Diego affair is in the sight of one of the film's subjects weeping in the audience of a panel entitled "Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way." Comic-Con Episode IV is indulgent to a fault about everything that happens on the convention floor, but Spurlock makes the smart decision to shape the film primarily around subjects who have an economic stake in the goings-on.
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Amid the hustle and bustle of last weekend's WonderCon, Movieline's camera caught the assorted superheroes walking among us giving into those utterly human moments we all share: There was Supergirl seeking respite from the chaos in the powder room; Silk Spectre tagging that one Jedi padawan on Facebook; even that rascally Deadpool photobombing Body-Paint Batman as he posed for a paparazzi shot on the convention floor. After the jump, browse Movieline's gallery for these and more moments at WonderCon that remind us that beneath the superpowers and spandex and tights, superheroes -- like celebrities -- really are just like us.
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Less than a month after a bizarre incident in which The Amazing Spider-Man actor Rhys Ifans was cited for a backstage altercation at Comic-Con, the city of San Diego has declined to press charges: "After reviewing differing witness accounts, our prosecutors concluded there was not sufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt," a rep for the Attorney's Office told E! News, leaving Ifans free to pester his true nemesis: Spidey! [E! Online]
When the British sci-fi action pic Attack the Block opens this week in limited release, courtesy of Screen Gems, it will mark the completion of the long journey that comedian, screenwriter (Ant-Man, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn), and first-time director Joe Cornish has made with his alien invasion passion project. So how did a South London-set hood actioner fronted by a cast of teenage unknowns manage to become one of the buzziest, fan-beloved films of the year?
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Over the weekend at Comic-Con, Tom Hardy described his villainous role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises thusly: "You deal with something Dark Knight -- or Mad Max, or Superman or Spider-Man, whatever -- it's like going to work in an airport and going, 'Hi I'm over here!' and then everybody goes 'Oh here's that, that's the villain of the piece.' Then it's a thousand people going to Duty-Free. Like, [shouting] 'I AM THE VILLAIN!' and make a lot of noise." But wait, there's more!
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There are few actors who have earned as much geek cred and devoted followings as Sir Patrick Stewart, and certainly none others who were also performing Shakespeare on stage in the U.K. the night before flying across the world to greet fans at Comic-Con. (If only one could achieve warp speed on commercial airlines these days, international travel would be much easier.) So, of course, Movieline jumped at the chance for a few minutes in heaven with the erstwhile Captain Picard; what more perfect a Comic-Con experience could there be?
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Marvel Studios founder (and former toy inventor) Avi Arad has built an empire out of the superhero business, having produced everything from the Blade films to the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Iron Man, and Spider-Man films and the upcoming Andrew Garfield-starring reboot, not to mention the 2012 superhero superfilm The Avengers. Needless to say, there was a ton to discuss and not nearly enough time when Movieline caught up with Arad at Comic-Con right before Sony's Hall H panel for The Amazing Spider-Man.
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Meeting Rose McGowan over the weekend at Comic-Con, she instinctively offered her left hand first. Having injured her other arm weeks ago in the goriest window-related accident I've ever heard, she'd flown into San Diego to promote this summer's Conan the Barbarian, touted as one of the bloodiest action pics of the year. But to hear her tell it, Conan the Barbarian's got nothing on McGowan's last few years when it comes to struggle and pain -- and yet, she credits the summer swords 'n' sorcery pic with changing her mind about quitting Hollywood.
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The Comic-Con crowd has always been good to Jon Favreau -- recall the splash he made here in 2007 with Iron Man, a geek director finding his people -- and charmingly (or cunningly, but mostly charmingly) Favreau knows it. So even without a panel to present at Comic-Con this year, he brought his latest film, the sci-fi Western Cowboys & Aliens, to San Diego in a big way: By hosting an enormous premiere filled with cast, crew, hundreds of fans, and a rousing, touching speech that seemed to genuinely come from the heart.
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In order to catch Stephen Dorff and Nick Swardson during Comic-Con, Movieline had to brave the converted parking lot Camp Playboy, an artificial turf-lined space where dozens of scantily clad Playboy model types (day players, mostly) flitted about during our chat about Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, in which Swardson plays the world's unlikeliest porn star. In other words: The perfect setting.
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