NewYorkComicCon2008 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Universal was out in full force over the weekend, hosting panels for The Incredible Hulk (see our report here), Wanted and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Though less attention has been given to Wanted and Hellboy II so far, both films will provide, perhaps, some of this summer's most spectacular visuals.

Wanted

We mentioned it the other day, but prior to the Wanted panel at NY Comic Con, Cinematical was invited to Universal's suite high on the 52nd floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to hang with director Timur Bekmambetov and watch the Wanted Comic Con footage a drop early. Following the brief screening (on a monstrous flat screen TV), I caught up with Timur and spoke to him about the film. One thing, in particular, was whether he planned on a Wanted franchise, or if this would be a one-off film. Timur laughed when I asked, and said we'd have to wait to see if people go to see this one first. Also of note, when I asked if he planned to continue his very successful Night Watch/Day Watch series of films, Timur shot back: This [meaning Wanted] is it! This is the third film. Even though it has different story, the tone is the same from the other films."

Oh, and then came the footage ...

Star Wars

After waiting on a very long line for about an hour, I finally made my way into the IGN Theater for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones panel. The festivities had already gotten underway, and so the theater was packed, dark and hard to navigate. Additionally, I had walked in while they were screening footage for the upcoming video game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which hits shelves in September. The footage looked great (from what I could tell), and I'm looking forward to a game that's set in between Episodes III and Episodes IV as there's so much room to play with there. For more on the game, check out StarWars.com.

From there, Steve Sansweet introduced two guys who had just graduated with a doctorate in Star Wars from New York University. It's funny, too, because right before their names were announced the guy next to me leaned over to his girlfriend and said, "Holy crap, I didn't know you could get a doctorate in Star Wars! Why didn't I do that!? Then Sansweet played their senior thesis: a documentary that, in reality, turned out to be the trailer for Robot Chicken's Star Wars episode. Of course, the two guys were Seth Green and Matt Senreich. They, in turn, talked about how that episode is arriving on DVD in July. This will include all sorts of stuff, like the deleted scene they screened featuring George Lucas on a therapist's couch complaining about how other people messed up Star Wars when Lucas let them play in that world (ie: Robot Chicken). Funny stuff.