With a toothpick in his mouth and Shaun of the Dead t-shirt on his chest, EW contributor Stephen King strolled into New York Comic-Con like a rock star. Some bastard genius over at the Con hired two armed Stormtrooper “bodyguards” to escort in this Main Attraction, then lord over the mosh pit of photographers, creating a lightning-storm of flashes worthy of a Cannes premiere. (Two thoughts: We’re fairly certain those troopers’ guns weren’t real, and EW senior editor Marc Bernardin insists this lends itself to an Altamont joke.) Joined by Marvel honcho Joe Quesada, ridiculously talented artist Jae Lee, and an editor named Ralph Macchio (gee, he’s never heard that one before), the King shrugged off the ruckus with his usual confident dude-ness and held court at a Q&A panel in honor of Dark Tower, Marvel Comics’ adaptation of his fantasy series.
“No.” That was his response to the very first question — of the most vexing sort, asking if King would pony over an autograph in exchange for a $800 donation to his favorite charity. Thankfully, that didn’t kill the mood. Between ribbing Quesada for calling him “Mr. King” (he prefers more casual options such as “Your Honor” or “Your Lordship”) and casually dropping the word “man” about as many times as Tommy Lee is wont to say “bro,” King continued to answered any and all curiosities.
Here’s how I never imagined I’d begin a post about Hostel: Part II (opening June 8): director Eli Roth makes people feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And yet, it’s true. Before I meet Roth (pictured), who was at Comic Con to do a Q&A panel about the sequel to 2005’s torture-and-gore-fest Hostel, I have a lovely talk with his parents. They were on the set of both Hostel films, as well as 2002’s Cabin Fever, and seem not only unscathed but so proud you’d think their son saved kittens for a living. “They’ve been indulging my horror-director dreams since I was eight years old,” says Roth. “They let me get sawed in half with a chainsaw at my bar mitzvah.” Awww. But a supportive family unit hasn’t stopped Roth from making some very screwed-up cinema. EW sat down with Roth and Hostel: Part II stars Heather Matarazzo (The L Word), who is one of the film’s unfortunate American students, and Roger Bart (Desperate Housewives), who plays a sadistic businessman, to talk blood, guts and what Hostel has in common with Borat.
Saturday, the second day of New York Comic Con 2007, started devilishly early for this bleary-eyed camper, thanks to an invitation to breakfast with horror legend Wes Craven at a press event to promote The Hills Have Eyes 2 (which hits screens on March 23). A sequel to the 2006 remake of the original Wes-directed 1977 cult classic (keep up — there may be a test later), the new film was produced and cowritten by Craven, who this time opted to have the franchise’s hideously mutated, desert-dwelling cannibal villains terrorize a band of undertrained National Guardsmen.
But what would this bona fide master of horror — whose other directing credits include A Nightmare on Elm Street, all three Scream movies, and, most recently, Red Eye — serve for breakfast? Parboiled tarantula legs? Lightly sauteed vulture wings? A family-size bucket of virgin’s blood (not a particularly difficult delicacy to acquire at a comic convention)? The answer, mercifully, turned out to be waffles, bacon, sausage, and chef-made omelettes. Although, given the less than sylph-like nature of many of the gathered journalists (your correspondent included), it could be argued that this was actually the most evil and/or potentially fatal option imaginable.
Regardless, the never-before-shown footage screened at the event — which included a birth sequence that finds one of the aforementioned human-flesh-eating psychos acting as an hygenically doubtful midwife — reveals that the 67-year-old Craven’s fright-inducing chops are still very much intact. Afterwards, a cholesterol-crazed EW sat down to exclusively chat with the director about mutant kids, future plans, and dog flashbacks. Read our interview after the jump.
Kevin Smith has never met a comics convention he didn’t like. That fact was irrefutably proven on Saturday at the New York Comic Con, which the writer-director was all over like a virulent but good-natured rash -- despite the fact that he didn’t actually have anything to promote.
The first Smith sighting occurred at 11 a.m., when the Clerks auteur moderated, for his own fan-ish reasons, a Battlestar Galactica panel featuring Tricia “Number Six” Helfer, James “Gaius Baltar” Callis, and Sci Fi Channel marketing bigwig Adam Stosky. Friday, Callis and Helfer had dropped by the EW office to say hi, and the former predicted that Smith’s chairmanship would probably be “interesting.” So it proved. Smith's questions included the following:
To Stosky: “I’m going to start by asking the most obvious question, as we’re in a room full of Battlestar Galactica fans. Adam, how do you get into marketing?”
To Callis: “James, this season we saw you get into a three-way with Six and Xena, Warrior Princess. If you were also to nail Gillian Anderson, circa ’99, that would be the trifecta, right?”
To Stosky: “Friday night seems like a great time to air the show. Because the people who watch it don’t get laid anway. Why did it move to Sunday?”
To Callis: “You getting laid off this show, or what?”
Of course, the trio’s answers tended to be less interesting, and certainly less raunchy, than Smith’s questions. But Stosky did confirm that a straight-to-DVD Battlestar movie is in the pipeline and that series producer Ron Moore is also working on a prequel spin-off.
Meanwhile, those jonesing for another fix of Kevin Smith did not have to wait long: Later that afternoon the director returned to the stage for his own Q&A. Frankly, we can’t reproduce much of what he said, for reasons connected to both good taste and the laws of libel. However, we can say that EW learned the following:
It's been the calm before the storm(troopers) at high noon here at New York Comic Con. But right about now, exhibitors are bracing themselves for a frequently malodorous cloud of human haze — a.k.a. the "general population," God bless 'em — about to enter this veritable Thunderdome. If you recall, the Con's New York City debut last February was besmirched by a grossly underestimated nerd surge. City officials wearing Fire Marshall doodads were called in. Panelists got shut out from entering the premises. Message boards roared in protest. A big fiasco? Totally. But with one mammoth upside: a pivotal growth spurt. This year features many more booths, real-life Hollywood (genre) studios staking out a presence, and even a Playmate or two. Look for PopWatch's coverage over the weekend, as we seek scoop from such attendees as Stephen Colbert (who's plugging his Tek Jansen sci-fi adventure title), Hostel 2 director Eli Roth, Heroes' Hayden Panettiere, and Comic Con sine qua non Kevin Smith.
Some sneak previews:
