Get Psyched For Comic Con!

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Those of you who have been paying attention will have noticed that alot of my recent articles make mention of some mystical confluence of cinematic geek energies called "ComicCon". For those of you who have never heard of ComicCon...man are you missing out.

Every July, thousands of geeks make a pilgramage to San Diego (which actually means "a whale's vagina...") for an absolute celebration of film, television, comics, and all the things that make an ubergeek like me jump up and down with delite. There are panel discussions with industry legends like Ray Harryhausen and Forry Ackerman, autograph signings by celebrities, more merchandise, props, posters, lobby cards and collectibles than you can shake Crispin Glover at and, most importantly, presentations by most all the major film studios on any appropriate new releases.

These presentations usually includes appearances by directors, writers and stars and more often than not, the revelation of exciting new information. Last year Lucasfilm's Star Wars panel announced the title for Episode III. A few years ago, Bryan Singer came a mere two weeks after he had started filming X2 to show clips of Xavier and Magneto playing chess and Wolverine's berserker attack at Xavier's school.

This year promises to be no exception. I've gone through the schedule for this year and we are really in for some fantastic developments by the end of the weekend. I want to go to ComicCon really badly at some point in the enxt few years, hopefully once I make my way out to CA on a more permanent basis. Below is a list of the panels I'm most looking forward to reading about after the fact. (not bitter, not bitter...) I'll be following the coverage pretty closely this weekend, so expect that I may update on Saturday and/or Sunday.

ComicCon 2005:

A Scanner Darkly: The cheif animators will be present to discuss the animation process and probably show some clips.

Panel - Art Of Adapting Comics To The Screen: A number of people will be on hand to discuss, well, do I really have to type it out again? This one will be particularly notable because Simon Kinberg and Zak Penn will be on the panel discussing their work on the screenplays for X2 and X3. Man oh man, do I want a transcript of that Q&A...

V For Vendetta: The lovely and currently-short-haired Natalie Portman and Producer Joel Silver will be on hand to give us our first look at the film. I've been hearing promising things on this one, but it's still early on so let's hope for some footage here.

The Fountain: Man am I excited for this. Darren Aronofsky's dream project is finally coming to fruition and Darren will be there with star Rachel Weisz (no Hugh Jackman though) WE WILL SEE CLIPS OR A TRAILER. This movie started, died, the sets were sold off, Brad Pitt shaved his beard, and then somehow it was brought back from dead and Aronofsky left Watchmen to make this film and it sounds fantastic.

Zathura - Director Jon Favreau will be there with clips. I'm not a huge Jumanji fan but Zathura looks to be too cool for school. Plus anything that Favreau is directing I'm automatically excited about.

Ghost Rider: Director Mark Stephen Johnson will be there with Eva Mendes and Marvel guru Avi Arad to give us our first look at actual footage from the flick. I'm really interested to see how this one turns out, because this is another one of those comic properties that is vaguely known to the casual audience and yet could end up paying off big. NOTE: This is going on in the midst of a large Sony panel, so I'm really hoping that Avi will finally be announcing the damn Spider-Man 3 villians. It's about goddamn time and they're not gonna get a better platform to announce it.

Jim Henson Co: They're gonna be doing a 50th Anniversary retrospective which will clearly be freakin awesome to see, but more importantly, they're gonna give is a little peak at the upcoming Mirrormask. I still can't get that damn robotic Carpenters song out of my head...

Superman Returns: This is gonna be a big one, I gaurntee it. Bryan Singer will be there all by his lonesome I think, although I'd love it if Production Designer Guy Dyas tagged along. We will be getting a sneak peak at footage, perhaps that small boy pointing towards the sky? I'm expecting whatever it is he's gonna show to be nothing short of fantastic for two reasons: first, Singer has a great track record at ComicCon and second, because we haven't seen a video production diary on BlueTights since June 30th. I'm hoping that it's because Bryan's gonna knock us on our coal mining asses at ComicCon

Aeon Flux: I'm not superpsyched about this flick, mostly because I've yet to see anything particularly exciting come out of production. But Charlize Theron will be there, so maybe we'll finally start to get a taste of the good stuff.

Kevin Smith and Richard Kelly: I really shouldn't have to say much more than that. But I will anyway! Kevin Smith will probably be talking about alot of the 50,000 different projects he's got lined up, but mainly he and Richard Kelly (the writer/director of Donnie Darko and the writer of the upcoming Domino) will be talking about Kelly's upcoming directorial project Southland Tales. Not sure if we're gonna get footage, but I'll take any and all info I can get...

Serenity: Last spring I totally fell in love with Firefly, so the Firefly panel obviously has me excited, especially since Joss Whedon and almost the entire cast will be there...

King Kong: Peter Jackson will not be onhand, but we will be getting some more tastes of Skull Island. Also, there's a performance by Tenacious D scheduled for right after this presentation, so I would expect Jack Black to be there in PJ's stead.

Doom: An adaptation of the classic videogame starring the Rock. I'm told that the plot differs rather seriously from the game, but that it's goddamn scary. Plus Doug Jones, aka Abe Sapien plays multiple imps. That's just sweet man.


How can you read that list and NOT get excited? It's gonna be a crazy weekend, and I'll certainly be wishing I was in San Diego...