Sunday, the last day of San Diego Comic Con, is always deadly quiet on the film front with most journalists having left or skipping panels from being too drunk the night before. Three films though took the plunge and here's a look:
Balls of Fury Disney had weak presentation this year, opting mostly to plug its DVD product. Yet there was one little treat that got everyone excited - the premiere of the first footage from the next "Pirates of the Caribbean" flick. In the clip we see Chow Yun-Fat's Captain Sao Feng doing much of the talking whilst there's lots of sword fighting action between Jack Sparrow, Barbossa and Davy Jones. One funny scene has Sparrow trying an interesting method to turn a ship on its side.
Spider-Man 3 If there was one panel to see at Comic-Con, it was "Spider-Man 3". Many people got locked out of seeing it because the auditorium was so full, but for those who did get in it was a treat. The footage was what looked like a 90-second second trailer that was in the works with half the FX shots being animatics. They literally only just finished shooting and are about to go into editing so most of the visuals aren't complete, yet there was some great finished looking stuff too.
Amongst the shots on offer were some more Sandman visuals, a bit more of Harry Osborn using his dad's gear to go after Peter, Eddie Brock praying to God to kill Peter, lots of shots of Peter ripping off his black costume, some more shots of the moving black substance, and brief glimpses of both Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane. The money shot though caused the audience to literally leap in applause - in a church, Brock feels a black substance splash on his hand, he looks up as a huge blob of it falls down onto him, a few quick flashes shows his transformation, and then we see Venom in all his glory on all fours. The creature roars as the camera rushes down into its throat.
Director Sam Raimi was on hand with actors Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Bryce Dallas Howard, Topher Grace and Thomas Haden Church to talk about the film though all were under strict orders not to talk about the film much. Most of the questions naturally went to the topic of Venom which Grace fielded though didn't reveal much. Raimi said Steve Ditko and Todd McFarlane's work on the "Venom" comic series proved a big inspiration for the script.
