Monogram International’s Harry Potter Exclusives Cast a Spell on SDCC
The collectible company has revealed two sets of Harry Potter themed exclusives they will have at the show.
The first is the Hedwig Mug Set. Limited to 500 pieces, this includes a ceramic mug in the sculpt of Potter’s beloved owl. You also get a gold Hogwarts Crest. The set will cost $20.00
Second is the Harry Potter Pin Set. Also limited to 500 pieces, this set gives you pins of the crests of the four houses of Hogwarts — Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Plus you get an exclusive Hogwarts crest in gold. This pin set will cost $25 and be available at booth #3465
Stay tuned as more SDCC exclusive announcements are coming!
SDCC Exclusive AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Posters Coming As Variant Comic Covers!
Assemble Your Own Avengers With Epic Marvel’s AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Movie Variants!
New York, NY – January 16th, 2014 – Before Earth’s Mightiest Heroes do battle against Ultron in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron on May 1st 2015, don’t miss your chance to own a piece of the action with these epic Avengers: Age of Ultron Movie Variants in April.
Originally debuting at Comic-Con International 2014, these epic pieces of theatrical concept art by Ryan Meinerding, Charlie Wen & Andy Park combine to form one stunning image of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes locked in combat against Ultron’s massive army. Coming to eight Marvel comics in the month of April, these covers are just like the Avengers – better when assembled!
Don’t miss a single variant when they come to these exciting Marvel comics in April!
· Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover A
· Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover B
· New Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover A
· New Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover B
· Avengers #44
· Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover A
· Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever #1 Variant Cover B
· New Avengers #33
“These epic posters were really the hit of last year’s San Diego Comic-Con,” says Marvel SVP Sales & Marketing David Gabriel. “We’re glad that fans who attended the convention were able to get their hands on them but we’re even more excited to bring thousands of fans who may have missed this stunning image.”
Marvel urges retailers to check their orders on these hotly anticipated variant covers as they hit comic shelves through the month of April. No fan will want to miss the chance to own this stunning, epic image when the AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON MOVIE VARIANTS hit comic shops this coming April!
‘Leprechaun: Origins’ director talks rebooting silly series with legit horror
When it comes time to reboot a film franchise, creators go on about returning a series or its characters to their “roots.”
In the case of 90s horror-comedy Leprechaun, starting over means starting from scratch, for any attempt at a straight remake would mean sending the monster back to a farmhouse in North Dakota.
That’s one of the glaring problems with Leprechaun, pointed out by fans and critics alike. For six films, a grinning, green-suited Warwick Davis shamed the Irish in cities big and small, in outer space, and (twice) in the “hood” — everywhere but Ireland.
“That [concept] is hard to make scary,” said Zach Lipovsky, the Canadian-born filmmaker and VFX specialist helming this year’s reboot of the oft-ridiculed franchise, Leprechaun Origins.
“The ambition was to make a legitimately scary movie from something that inherently isn’t scary; it’s not tongue-in-cheek at all,” Lipovsky told Now Playing Podcast during a Q&A session at San Diego Comic-Con. “That’s something which is challenging when you have the premise of a leprechaun.”
Convincing audiences to take a chance on a series that had gone stale more than a decade ago meant reversing the Leprechaun-out-of-water formula from the previous films. This time, the human characters venture to the monster’s birthplace, an isolated village in the Irish countryside (played here by Vancouver).
“We used tons of atmosphere; everything has that misty, foggy kind of look,” Lipovsky said. “The characters are in a very old town, a place they shouldn’t be that’s kind of lost to time.”
In order to legitimize his monster, Lipovsky went about researching Celtic lore and cryptozoology, and ruled out any look that would liken it to the character on the Lucky Charms box.
Professional wrestler Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl was also brought in to replace Davis (Origins is produced by WWE Studios), and the actor underwent a daily three-hour makeup routine to become the creature.
“We thought maybe he came from underground – came from a gold mine or a natural cave that had gold deposits,” Lipovsky said. “[We researched] underground creatures like mole rats and Gollum, and things that kind of looked like walking scrotums.”
“The idea was to start fresh and look at the origins of leprechauns and what could be the creature – that isn’t a little guy in a green suit,” he added. “To be able to reinvent a mythology in that way is kind of awesome for a creator.”
Audiences won’t see Postl “full Leprechaun” in promotional materials, but Lipovsky promised a look more monster than human, and hinted that his Leprechaun is not so much a gold-hoarder as he is a gold-eater.
“There are some pretty disgusting scenes in the film where unfortunate people have gold on their body, and they’re in the wrong country for that,” he said.
When asked if Origins would include Easter eggs for Leprechaun fans, Lipovsky said he wanted to acknowledge the “legacy” of the franchise, adding that audiences should look for “certain iconic props” that tie into past installments.
“I think the previous franchise did an awesome job of being tongue-in-cheek, and that kind of made it what it was,” he said.
While it performed respectably upon its release in 1993, the original Leprechaun is best remembered today for having a then-unknown Jennifer Aniston in the starring role.
Some fans argue the series arrived late to the party; early 90s audiences that might have embraced the silly slasher during the genre’s heyday had moved on to “horror at home” thrillers like Pacific Heights, Unlawful Entry and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle – films in which established, well-liked actors took turns portraying the “psychopath-next-door.”
While Hollywood studios rode the wave, the Leprechaun and other low-rent villains (Pumpkinhead, Dr. Giggles, the Trickster from Brainscan) fell flat, and those that produced sequels were forced to go the direct-to-video route.
Leprechaun chose the latter, and producers continued to churn out below-average product, sending Davis’ character off Earth (Leprechaun 4) and later pairing him with rapper-actor Ice-T (Leprechaun in the Hood).
Lipovsky believes the series’ checkered history will work in his favor when audiences sit down to watch Origins.
“I actually kind of hope people tune in to it expecting something kind of fun and silly, so their guard is down; then as stuff starts to go haywire they’re just horrified,” he said. “That would be probably even better.”
And while the director is “wide open” to the idea of an Origins sequel, don’t count on seeing his monster in space.
“Maybe the Irish hood.”
The 40 Year-Old-Critic: Snakes on a Plane (2006)
In The 40-Year-Old Critic, Venganza Media creator and host Arnie Carvalho recalls a memorable film for each year of his life. This series appears daily on the Venganza Media Gazette.
As I discussed in yesterday’s The 40-Year-Old Critic entry, I began my podcasting career in 2005 with the Star Wars collecting show Star Wars Action News; launched shortly after the release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
It had seemed like an easy enough hobby, we just record for 30 minutes each week.
However, the reach exceeded our every expectation, and in February 2006, we realized that recording from home wasn’t enough. All of the new Star Wars action figures and statues that would be released in 2005 had been revealed at Toy Fair International in New York City — and we weren’t there. We had our friends Pete and Chuck from the website Jedi Temple Archives call the show and share the news, but we knew we had missed out.
Pete and Chuck also told about the huge Lucasfilm and Hasbro presence at San Diego Comic-Con. New toys would again be revealed at the summer convention, and we felt Star Wars Action News should be there to cover it.
Marjorie and I had become more experienced con-goers since our first trip to Star Wars Celebration II for the release of Attack of the Clones, but we had never flown to an event. Airline tickets were expensive. Still, we had a show, and we needed the toys. Soon tickets were purchased, press passes obtained, and we were going to SDCC.
Then things got interesting.
As registered press for the convention, Marjorie and I started getting numerous e-mails from various companies seeking exposure. From toymakers to authors to movie studios, we were invited to exclusive events and given opportunities to interview total strangers.
Then came the e-mail that gave us the opportunity to interview Samuel L. Jackson and others for the upcoming film Snakes on a Plane.
I had heard about Snakes on a Plane but paid it little attention. Entertainment Weekly had written several articles about the silly movie with the overly-literal title. From the name alone hundreds of fan websites had sprung up. Despite its premise, the film had a groundswell of good buzz and the film’s producers wanted to capitalize on press coverage at the convention. With Jackson being a vital presence in the Star Wars prequels I thought an interview would certainly be of interest to Star Wars Action News listeners.
I like to imagine this is Jackson calling his agent wondering how he got on this Plane.
It seemed too good to be true. Jackson was an A-list star; I’d been podcasting for 9 months. I couldn’t believe it would actually happen. I told absolutely no one — after all, if it fell through I didn’t want to be mocked or thought of as a lying braggart. But I prepared: I bought a high-end digital audio recorder and I researched the film to be as informed as possible going in.
Yet the entire event could have been called San Diego Snakes-on-a-Plane Con. On the exhibit floor was a giant booth that was shaped like a snake, yet inside the mouth it had the feeling of a cramped airliner. The music video for Cobra Starship’s “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)” was omnipresent (and I strained my eye every time it played for a glimpse of Maja Ivarsson’s nipple). We had gone to the convention with some friends who had just discovered the Badger Mushroom song, and so throughout the convention we’d regale each other with the refrain, “Snaaake! It’s a snaaake!” Our friends even brought rubber snakes to the convention as practical jokes.
I was swept up in the utter hype for Snakes on a Plane. I couldn’t wait for them to “Bring it.”
Sure enough, the next thing I knew I was in my first press roundtable interview. Jackson was the biggest star at the event, but it turned out there were four interviews in play. First, we interviewed director David R. Ellis, who I knew from his work on Final Destination 2. The other reporters at the table seemed disinterested and I got to ask a few questions.
Then we talked to the film’s snake wrangler Jules Sylvester. He wore an amazing serpent as he talked about the challenges of dealing with more than 450 snakes on set.
Finally, Sam Jackson visited our table.
Now the other reporters had perked up, and because I was still unaccustomed to the rhythm of the roundtable, I had to work hard to get questions in. I wasn’t entirely new to interviews; I had done many for journalism classes, and interviewed Star Wars collectors and authors on the show. But this was an A-list star. Jackson was there and actually joked with me a bit. It was surreal. He even gave me an autograph on a Star Wars book.
Finally the last interviewee came, Keenan Thompson, who Marjorie knew primarily for his work on Saturday Night Live. I got a couple of questions in there as well.
Leaving the interviews I realized I had far more content than I had thought. While the Jackson interview would be of some interest to Star Wars fans, the rest of the interviews were full of good information, though I knew they had no place on Star Wars Action News. Early feedback from Star Wars listeners was that they did not care for bad language, and so I figured the audience crossover between an R-rated reptile disaster film and Star Wars Action News was minimal.
I’m not sure if a movie titled Snakes on a Plane needs more plot than, well, snakes on a plane. Yet this film also gives us a crime story to explain…sort of…how the snakes, and Sam Jackson, got on that plane.
But with four great interviews in the can I decided to start our second podcast, Snakes on a Podcast. It was a limited show, with only five episodes. The first four would lead up to the release of the movie and each would contain one interview. Then, for the fifth show, Marjorie and I would review the movie.
We publicized the show heavily on Star Wars Action News and it got a decent number of downloads. More, anticipation was high for our review; people wanted to know if we thought Snakes on a Plane was worth seeing.
Marjorie and I went to see Snakes opening night in August 2006. We had pre-purchased tickets, the Internet and Comic-Con hype convincing us it would be a sold-out show. It wasn’t.
More, the movie itself wasn’t very good, and we knew it in the theater. It wasn’t terrible, we had seen far worse that year, yet we had hoped for a pulpy B-movie full of laughs and fun. This was long before there was a Sharknado or Piranha 3D, but it was those films’ campy vibe that we hoped Snakes on a Plane would capture. There were moments of that in the film, but they were few and far between. The studio had initially made a PG-13 movie, then went back and added in scenes for the R-rating based off Internet fan demand for the line, “I want these motherfucking snakes off this motherfucking plane.” Those added scenes were what we wanted, that line was legendary, but in between moments of fun were long stretches of stupidity.
You can hear our thoughts, recorded minutes after leaving the theater, in the archived Snakes on a Podcast show. It is the first movie Marjorie and I ever reviewed in podcast form, and is the precursor to Now Playing Podcast, a show we started nine months later.
While the movie failed to meet our expectations, the theatrical viewing didn’t. It was an experience akin to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While the theater wasn’t packed, everyone there was a built-in fan and the energy of the audience made for a good time. I have watched Snakes once since that theatrical viewing and it is clear that without the fans surrounding us there was little fun to be had.
Snakes on a Plane will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only was it the first time I ever felt like a real reporter for a podcast, it also is one of the last movies to consume San Diego Comic-Con. In the 2000s the complaints were that SDCC was no longer about comics; the fans had come for the movies. That was certainly true in my case. Hollywood studios saw SDCC as an opportunity to push genre movies to greater success, and spent hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars at the convention trying to do so.
One of the films better, funnier scenes–added later to ensure an R-rating.
Despite the impressive imprint the movie had on the convention floor, Snakes on a Plane fizzled at the box office. Since 2006 a single film has always been pushed at the convention, from Hamlet 2 to Balls of Fury to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and they all failed to meet heightened studio expectations. Now it seems film studios have all but abandoned Comic-Con. The giant, custom booths that used to grace the floor are mostly gone. While stars still fly in to host one-hour panels, the convention has morphed into a showcase of genre television shows like Doctor Who, Game of Thrones and Arrow.
Yet each year I hope for another Snakes on a Plane-type experience, another extreme booth attempting to immerse fans in the world of their movie. It may not happen again, but at least I got these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking Plane.
Tomorrow — 2007!
Arnie is a movie critic for Now Playing Podcast, a book reviewer for the Books & Nachos podcast, and co-host of the collecting podcasts Star Wars Action News and Marvelicious Toys. You can follow him on Twitter @thearniec
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