Welcome to Hell!
@RobBex2
PREACHER (Friday) – The Preacher panel at San Diego Comic Con was a 5-Bible experience from beginning to end. We were guested by show regulars as well as a few special stars. Stay tuned. As for the panel content, Preacher offered part spoiler, part informative and all insanely awesome. Show creator and show runner Seth Rogan emceeed the first part and introduced guests Kevin Smith (AMC’s Comic Book Men), Jason Martzoukas (The League), Danielle Panabaker (The Flash), along with show co-creator Evan Goldberg. Then, we were treated to show regulars Graham McTavish (Saint of Killers), Ian Colletti (Arseface), Joseph Gilgun (Cassidy), Ruth Negga (Tulip O’Hare) and Preacher himself, Dominic Cooper (Jesse Custer).
(Cont.) The real treat of the panel was a table read of the upcoming episode, which all culminated with Rogan saying, “ACT V… screw it; [let’s] show the good people Act V” — leading, then, to just what Hell was and, likely, just what you would imagine it to be. Following the hilarious read, with Martzoukas and Goldberg as highlights as the “Angels” with (purposely?) matching white shirts, Kevin Smith took over as moderator. Preacher co-creator Garth Ennis came out and revealed that it was he that told Rogan and Goldberg to not recreate the show issue-by-issue, but rather, “remix” their own.
To Ennis, the panel for panel method (ala Watchmen movie) would have made the show “burn out in a season and a half.” Rogan and Goldberg said they wanted to make Preacher look like a variety of different genre films. Cooper said he was initially scared of taking over the role of the flamboyant yet touching Vampire; while Negga lobbied for her bad-ass role. Cooper is able to hold on to the ever powerful urges that riddle his body “because as much good as there is in Jessie, there is an equal amount of evil in him. He’s able to match the evil in the entity”. Preacher‘s season finale is July 31st on AMC. 5/5 Bibles.
@onemyke
LUKE CAGE (Thursday) – Just cause all the Marvel Netflix trailers shown at Comic-Con were either released or described to you online, doesn’t mean you didn’t miss out by not going to this year’s Luke Cage panel — especially if you’ve never experienced the weird, Icy Hot combo of Jeph Loeb’s awkwardly entertaining moderating and Marvel Studio’s now patented brand of professional hype. The panel was full of these pseudo Hall-H grasps at viral conversation, but Loeb (and Joe Quesada – trying too hard to do a bit with Jeph) never sold it, or could not pull off the charisma needed for that hype. Loeb asked Jon Bernthal a few questions about now being Frank Castle — your standard run-of-the-mill promo convo. Bernthal left soon after and we finally got to meet the multi-Emmy nominated cast of Power Man.
http://youtu.be/Ymw5uvViqPU
(Cont.) The excitement of the audience, and some of the cast, was palpable. For the latter it’s always hard to tell if they really liked the material or they’re just excited to be part of the “sure thing” that is the Netflix Marvel Universe. Luckily, whenever the discussion felt like it was running out of steam, Loeb — in some of his best decision making of the night — would hit us with a clip from the show, exclusive to all the fans in Ballroom 20 that night. Showrunner, Cheo Hodari Coker naturally had the most interesting insight into the upcoming series. When asked by Loeb about the music of the series, Cheo talked about Luke Cage being the “Wutangification of the Marvel Universe.” In what promises to be the most GeekSwag show ever, Coker talked about, and even showed off, the huge amount of hip-hop influence. He basically wanted the classic Netflix binge watch to also feel like an old school album listening session.
http://youtu.be/wBZtM8q2Z1g
(Cont.) Also, every episode title of Luke Cage is going to be the name of a Gang Starr song. A big scene featuring what seems like it’s going to be one of the more badass monologues from Mahershala Ali, who’s going to be playing Cornell Stoakes a.k.a. Cottonmouth was cleverly centered around a Notorious B.I.G. poster, both in speech and frame composition. From there Loeb, before ending the panel, decided to have the whole cast pose together on the stage for a photo-op without announcing that he was going to do so, or letting people know if the panel was really over or not…
(Cont.) After a quarter of the room left, because after the cast was posing for a 3rd photo-op that didn’t really seem to be for us, the video tech blew a queue and started running the Finn Jones pre-clip to the Iron Fist trailer. It actually worked out of the fans; but Quesada and Loeb were insistent on doing their pre-clip unfunny sketch/hype-bit beforehand that nearly ruined the show. Still – no love lost. Keep killing it in your actual jobs, and we’ll forgive anything. 3.75/5 Bibles.