2006 San Diego Comic-Con: Day Three

2006 San Diego Comic-Con: Day Three

Posted: Monday July 24th 2006 2:19am

Source: Dark Horizons
Author: Garth Franklin



Saturday is always the big day at the San Diego Comic Con, yet the talk was all around five movies in particular that day - a hardcore swords and sandals epic, a loving throwback to sleazy 70's exploitation cinema, a western-like Faustian comic book tale, and a glimpse of the third installments in two of the biggest film franchises ever. Here's a look at what I caught:

300
Director Zack Snyder, comic legend Frank Miller and actors Gerard Butler and David Wenham were on hand for the "300" panel by Warner Bros. The stylised film uses green screen backgrounds and is slavishly loyal to the material, just like Miller's "Sin City". The big difference though is the subject matter and the budget - the former being about the 480 BC-set Battle of Thermopylae in which 300 elite Spartan warriors held off a contingent of a million Persian soliders from entering Greece.

An extended very R-rated trailer set to Nine Inch Nails music showed this not to be your average "Gladiator" style rip off - lots of sex and nudity, dark visual stylings bordering on horror/fantasy, and touches ranging from plenty of violent bloodshed to fascinating cinematography tricks (lots of frame rate changes for example) essentially bring the original graphic novel to life almost exactly. The clip was so well received, it ended up playing three times. Butler and Wenham played off each other well, answering some rather lame audience questions with good humour.


http://www.darkhorizons.com/news06/comic3.php