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Yesterday's 'USA Today' carried a news story on Comic-Con on the front page of its 'Life' section: 'Comic-book convention has starring role in films' ran the headline. The story explained why 5000 producers, screenwriters and movie executives attend Comic-Con International, with the vice president of Paramount Pictures telling USA Today's reporter that 'It is the single most important gathering on the West Coast, if not the country, of genre fans', before explaining why Bob Ducsy, producer of the forthcoming 'Van Helsing' movie rushed to get clips of his movie together for the convention: 'We just finished shooting last week, but the convention is that important', he told the paper.
		Traditionally, Saturday has been Hollywood's day, with producers, directors and celebrities from the biggest studios selling their wares at the convention to try and generate an early buzz. This year, the Saturday schedule is completely full and some Hollywood material has seeped into Friday. With little really new happening today on the 'Lord of the Rings' front I'll be reporting on a couple of the big panels I attended: Quenton Tarantino's forthcoming 'Kill Bill' which has made headlines here because of the last-minute decision to release it as two 90 minute films rather than a single 3 hour one, and the panel for one of my all-time favourite TV shows, FarScape, which was recently cancelled at short notice by the Sci-Fi Channel after 4 years of innovation and quality writing, acting and direction. For me, the day started with a frustrating wait at the Press/Media desk - someone I'd met in the Press line at the TORn oscar party had yesterday asked me to be their photographer for an interview with Sean Astin at midday on Saturday, but I arrived at a meeting point to discuss requirements later than intended! The ride to the convention centre, via convention shuttle, had been intersting as it involved riding on a right-hand drive 10 year old London double-decker bus - just when you think Comic-Con can't surprise you it does it all over again! It seemed somehow appropriate that rain started to drizzle as we started our journey! Once inside the exhibition area of the main hall the usual "meet" at TheOneRing.net stand occurred. TheOneRing.net staffers were busy setting up their new wireless webcam, dishing out the newly arrived t-shirts (the most popular of which was sold out again about an hour later), and handing out free 'What are you TOLKIEN about?' badges. Their 'confessional' box was doing good trade, and the hit rates they were getting on their webcam were phenomenally high! Richard Taylor showed up at the Sideshow Weta stand where he was pretty much mobbed again, but seemed happy to stay and talk with people and sign autographs. He was joined by Daniel Falconer and other Weta staff and it looked like anybody who wanted an autograph eventually got one despite the large crowds. New Line had long queues forming for their new 'limited edition' lithograph (Aragorn and Legolas today, after Merry and Pippin yesterday), which was rather silly as there were still plenty of the 4000 run available a couple of hours after the scheduled giveaway time of 11am. Several people who shall be nameless (OK, I was one of them!) could be seen going round in circles leaving the queue and rejoining it to get extra copies for friends not able to attend the convention. Other than the new lithograph I didn't detect any new freebies being given out, although I spent more time away from the exhibition floor today. The mystery as to which of the two rumours (mentioned yesterday) about the lack of fan club activity was true, appeared to be given with the announcement of two signings on the New Line stand. Unfortunately I missed the Andy Serkis (Gollum) signing because it clashed with the FarScape panel (so no pictures - sorry!) but I did manage to catch a glimpse of Sala Baker (Sauron) who looked to be struggling to cope with the crowds queued for his signature in the time he'd been allocated on the New Line stand. That is pretty much it as far as Lord of the Rings activites are concerned for today, although it is worth mentioning that a previously quietly kept secret - the appearance of Elijah Wood (Frodo) on the New Line panel scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday) - was soon very public knowledge as Weta staff answered questions about who was appearing perhaps more honestly than they should have done! At the end of the day a new story, said to originate from a staff member in the autograph area, did the rounds. Rumour had it that Dominic Monaghan (Merry) and Billy Boyd (Pippin) were going to be appearing too, despite not being booked to appear! Time will tell, although this rumour contradicts information given out shortly before the convention by Billy's web site manager and personal assistant. The 'scary fans in costume' count went up dramatically today (and will probably increase tomorrow, the most popular day of the show) - a few of these are really well made, but a lot aren't and one wonders what motivates grossly overweight individuals to squeeze themselves into poor copies of movie costumes originally worn by svelte actors or actresses! Most of the group I've been hanging out with are FarScape fans so we headed up for the panel, catching the last few minutes of a panel on Rob Zombie's movie/forthcoming DVD 'House of 1000 Corpses'. This looked like it had been fun, but showed a problem that is definitely on the increase since last year - the lack of understanding that children are present. At one stage Zombie refused to answer a question on whether or not he practiced necrophilia (?!!) on the grounds that children were present, before joining other panel members in using four letter words and discussing 18-rated material. This is a problem for this supposedly 'family-oriented' event with other Ringers complaining that there were many 'pornographic' displays (the most popular with the geeky male crowd being a lady walking around wearing nothing bar a bit of tape to cover her nipples and a thong that would better be described as a piece of string). The organisers really need to decide who their target audience is and, if necessary, section the exhibition area off into two areas - one for the family, and one for over-18s. The FarScape panel was a lot of fun, with encouraging news for those like myself waiting for the fifth series to be made. There was nothing formal to announce.... yet, but it was clear things are moving forward in the background and the cast, Ben Browder in particular, seemed optimistic that something might be announced soon. In the meantime Browder was flying off 'to Europe' to do a new series for The History Channel, the fans got to ask all sorts of questions (with many of them delivering 'It's all about me' introductions before each question even when told to speed things up :-( ) and our group were glad we went. Funniest moment for me was Browder being asked if he could reveal some dialogue from the as-yet-unfilmed Series 5 and retorting with 'What the hell was that, Aeryn?' (you need to have seen the show to understand!). At the end of the panel autographed t-shirts and caps were thrown out and I didn't notice until a friend (Moocholas) pointed it out that one of them had landed in my bag! Another friend (Pippin's Scarf) and I took the opportunity to host an informal panel of our own entitled 'It's all about me' with me telling the audience of one (Moocholas) that yes, this web site really IS all about me, with Pip confirming 'It IS all about him!'. I thank you, and Go me! On the shuttle service back to the hotel we heard a lot of complaints about celebrity no-shows. This is one of the problems of pre-announcing special guests which doesn't happen when they're kept a surprise! The excuse 'They're stuck in traffic' seemed to be a common one (funny how the FarScape cast were all able to make it despite eg Ben Browder having to fly out to Europe immediately after the panel!). I suffered from this problem myself in the exceedingly well attended panel for Quentin Tarrantino's 'Kill Bill' movie where after a 20 minute delayed start, actor Michael Madsen had to single-handedly deal with a session that was supposed to have included Tarrantino, David Carradine and a couple of other actors. Poor show! Madsen himself was good fun - a dry, laid back character who started a running joke going of starting each answer with 'I wish you were a studio producer' every time he was paid the slightest compliment. This session also showed the problems of last year that I think will plague tomorrow's bigger sessions: despite three announcements to the effect that video-taping and flash photography were banned within 10 seconds of Madsen appearing a crowd stormed the front area blinding all those around them with popping flash-guns (you will notice that my pictures of this session are slightly poorer quality because a flash was not used!). While I don't understand why this rule only applies to one room (the biggest room of the twenty being used to host panels), inevitably there will come a point where the small minority who ignore these rules end up causing a situation where nobody is allowed to take cameras into the event at all! The day ended, as it had done yesterday, with a gathering of friends for a small party in our hotel. Last night had paid its toll, with many of us, like a LOT of the convention attendees, feeling (and looking) exhausted after endless traipsing around the convention centre on little sleep and too much alcohol the night before. So tonight's 'party' was a more subdued affair as tomorrow will be a long day with endless panels to look forward to: Warner Brothers showcasing their forthcoming movie releases, Paramount and Angelina Jolie promoting the second Tomb Raider movie, Kevin Smith talking for an hour and a half about his recent and forthcoming projectgs, New Line promoting Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Freddy vs Jason (oh dear - who thought up putting those together into a single session??!?), Sony promoting the forthcoming Spider-Man 2, Hellboy and Underworld, Hugh Jackman and friends promoting the forthcoming Van Helsing.... and who knows what else? Check back for coverage on Day 3 later tomorrow, the highlight of which will be the first public showing of the 'Return of the King' trailer, panel appearances by Sean Astin (Sam), Elijah Wood (Frodo), Andy Serkis (Gollum) and perhaps a couple of other hobbits too???!? Click here to read previous day's report (Day 1) Click here to read next day's report (Day 3)
Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk