Comic-Con Day 2: Megan Fox Sex Scene, Cameron Diaz Spoils The Box?
Plus a first look at the new Freddy Krueger, Where the Wild Things Are, and more.
It's a salacious headline, but it's all true. During the Friday-headlining Warner Bros. panel - the most star-studded one yet this year - Hall H was packed with fan girls and boys wild about the first trailer for the new Nightmare on Elm Street, the Jonah Hex red band trailer (featuring not one, but two Megan Fox nude shots), and its star Josh Brolin, who embraced the sheer nerdiness of Comic-Con and its denizens, winning over thousands with deadpan amusement. Meanwhile, during Richard Kelly's presentation of The Box, we wondered aloud: Did Cameron Diaz just give away HUGE plot spoilers? Read on for more.
Richard Kelly
Hours before previewing his latest film, The Box, in front of thousands in Hall H, director Richard Kelly spoke exclusively with Rotten Tomatoes in an early morning interview. He shared with us his Five Favorite Films and spoke further about The Box, adapted from a Richard Matheson short story. In it, Cameron Diaz and James Marsden star as a married couple circa 1976 given an opportunity by a mysterious stranger (Frank Langella, missing half his face thanks to CG): Push a button, and receive $1 million. The catch: in pushing the button, you'd cause the death of a stranger.
In a beachfront hotel adjacent to the convention hall, Kelly told us that The Box was the most personal film he's made to date - a significant note when you consider his first film was Donnie Darko. Discussing his notorious sophomore feature, Southland Tales, Kelly had no regrets; he even plans to make a longer Director's Cut, and further expand the film's universe. (Read more in our full Five Favorite Films with Richard Kelly piece.)
At the public panel for The Box, Kelly shared a new trailer. Where the first teaser trailer left me feeling iffy at best, the new clip was much tighter and revealed more of a sense of 1950's-era suspense, which is seemingly exactly what Kelly was going for. The new footage shows more of a division between Diaz and Marsden's characters; she pushes the button almost without hesitation, and subsequently they appear to suffer the consequences together.
While this new, arguably truer trailer was a vast improvement over the first teaser, it still retained an air of mystery. (A common trait in Kelly films that pose questions but seldom reveal answers.) That welcome kind of ambiguity fell by the wayside as star Diaz took the mike. [SPOILER ALERT]
"Richard had to throw in guys from Mars," Diaz enthused, revealing that the underlying theme of The Box is otherworldly. The titular box is, it would seem, an alien object used to "test humanity" with a moral, existential challenge. So, the mysterious Arlington Steward (Langella) is working for aliens to see if humans are inherently greedy? Thanks, Cameron.
[END SPOILERS]
Zoe Bell
Between chatting with Kelly and watching The Box footage, we nabbed time with stuntwoman-turned-actress Zoe Bell, who got her start stunt doubling for Lucy Lawless on Xena: Warrior Princess before joining the chummy fold of Quentin Tarantino. The New Zealand native was a delight; look for her Five Favorite Films this week, along with details on her first feature vehicle, Angel of Death. (Zoe Bell as an assassin? Sign us up.)
Where the Wild Things Are
If you (like us) missed the extensive footage from Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are presentation, fear not; it's online for your viewing pleasure. Buzz from the panel was that it was magical; some grown men even admitted to crying. See for yourself!
Next: The new Freddy Krueger revealed, Jonah Hex's sexy, supernatural trailer, and Sherlock Holmes
Thefear77 on 07-24-2009 09:19 PM
my balls itch