{"id":3624,"date":"2012-07-16T11:01:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T17:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3624"},"modified":"2012-07-16T11:01:25","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T17:01:25","slug":"hollywood-pensive-at-comic-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=3624","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Pensive At Comic-Con"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Peter Jackson arrived at the Comic-Con fan convention here on Saturday and wowed the crowd with 13 minutes of highly anticipated footage from the first of his two ultraexpensive \u201cHobbit\u201d movies.<\/p>\n

But he also played it safe \u2014 very safe \u2014 by not so much as mentioning, much less demonstrating, the filmmaking wizardry at the heart of the project. That left big questions about the movie industry\u2019s future unanswered and added to a theme of this year\u2019s Comic-Con: Hollywood has come to fear this place.<\/p>\n

Mr. Jackson is shooting his two \u201cHobbit\u201d movies, the first of which is to arrive in theaters in December, at an unusually fast 48 frames a second, twice the standard rate. The result can startle \u2014 colors appear brighter, images sharper and motion smoother \u2014 and Mr. Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d trilogy, thinks the technique can transform moviegoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to provide a cinematic experience that brings people back to theaters,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

But an estimated 6,500 fans did not have that experience when they gathered in Comic-Con\u2019s cavernous Hall H moments earlier to see the new footage. A large number of them had camped through the night. (Ian McKellen, who portrayed the wizard Gandalf, was struck by the fans\u2019 youth. \u201cIt is astonishing that most people at the presentation just now have never seen \u2018The Lord of the Rings\u2019 in theaters,\u201d he observed at a news conference.)<\/p>\n

With devotion like that, one might think that Comic-Con would be a relatively low-risk place for Mr. Jackson and his studio backers, led by Warner Brothers, to take 48-frame-projection for a test drive. This is a crowd that has been starved for a successor to \u201cAvatar,\u201d a movie that was supposed to herald a transformed moviegoing experience that has so far not arrived.<\/p>\n

Still, Mr. Jackson, one of Hollywood\u2019s boldest directors, made the unexpectedly timid decision to present \u201cThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey\u201d in a standard format here \u2014 it was not even in 3-D \u2014 because he feared an online outcry that could hurt box-office results.<\/p>\n

It is no small worry. \u201cUnexpected Journey\u201d and \u201cThe Hobbit: There and Back Again,\u201d due next year, together carry an estimated $800 million in production and global marketing costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to repeat the Cinema-Con experience,\u201d Mr. Jackson explained. At that convention, held in April for movie theater owners, his high-speed presentation of \u201cUnexpected Journey\u201d footage received a sharply mixed reaction. \u201cHall H is not the place\u201d where he wanted fans to experience it, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Jackson was far from the only one holding back in San Diego this year. Three of Hollywood\u2019s six major movie studios \u2014 Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox \u2014 decided not to come at all rather than risk showing footage for distant movies with still-unfinished special effects.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the director Zack Snyder, there to promote his new Superman movie, \u201cMan of Steel,\u201d set for release next June, showed a trailer with no overt villain. When fans asked about the bad guy, Mr. Snyder hemmed, hawed and decided to treat that bit of news like a state secret: everyone in the movie will be \u201crelatable,\u201d he offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust me\u201d seemed to be Mr. Snyder\u2019s message; he described his movie and its components as \u201cawesome\u201d 10 or 12 times. But the brief atmospheric footage that he presented was not so much awesome as adequate. The clips hinted at the sort of moody, gritty superhero revisionism that has been standard since Christopher Nolan, a producer of \u201cMan of Steel,\u201d directed \u201cBatman Begins\u201d in 2005.<\/p>\n

Entertainment companies come to Comic-Con with the goal of igniting controlled brush fires on the Web \u2014 a burst of positive Twitter, blog and Facebook chatter that spreads to the mainstream and creates new fans. But the Comic-Con crowd is a discerning one and frequently refuses to cooperate. This can create difficult (sometimes impossible) messes for studio marketers to mop up.<\/p>\n

This year, there were examples of each. Disney earned a positive reaction to an intense train sequence from its coming \u201cLone Ranger\u201d remake, squelching concerns (for now) about the global appeal of a Western.<\/p>\n

In the opposite direction, \u201cThe Host,\u201d a new movie project from Stephenie Meyer, the author of the \u201cTwilight\u201d books, was greeted with puzzled expressions and tepid applause. That sent a publicist for its distributor, Open Road Films, scrambling to point a reporter toward positive reactions from bloggers.<\/p>\n

Despite showcasing \u201cThe Hobbit\u201d in a conventional way, Warner Brothers put considerable effort into the convention. The studio and one of its major suppliers, Legendary Pictures, dressed up a two-and-a-half-hour presentation with a collection of huge, wraparound screens that flashed logos and moving imagery behind and around the stage.<\/p>\n

But the net effect was to seemingly shrink the separate screens on which the movies actually appeared. Superman was not nearly as super as the big Legendary logo that flashed behind Thomas Tull, that company\u2019s chief executive, as he took the unusual step of introducing his company\u2019s movies, rather than sitting back in the reserved seats and applauding the talent.<\/p>\n

The Warner presentation, described onstage as the convention\u2019s \u201cjuggernaut\u201d panel, was impressive. It tumbled through snippets of a giant monsters-and-robots movie, \u201cPacific Rim,\u201d from Guillermo del Toro; dropped a bombshell by introducing plans for a new \u201cGodzilla\u201d; and had a surprise appearance by Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis to promote \u201cThe Campaign.\u201d (Mr. Ferrell showed up in a Will Ferrell mask.)<\/p>\n

Still, Mr. del Toro\u2019s clips, though shaking and shuddering with 25-story-tall robots, barely showed tooth or claw of the apocalyptic monsters the robots were supposed to be fighting. Asked about the creatures, he said they would be the best of the best, nine or so horrible beasts selected from what he said was an \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d-like audition line of about 40 created for the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything will be there,\u201d he assured the fans.<\/p>\n

It was as if the movies had become a little too big for Comic-Con and its screens. But trust us, said the filmmakers.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re going to be \u201cawesome.\u201d