Comic-Con Beowulf Preview
Posted 07.26.07 by reelz
Comic-Con is officially off and running. ReelzChannel has already made their presence known, attending the Beowulf footage screening and living large at the afterparty, the after-after party and finally hanging with the director of the first Saw and the upcoming Death Sentence, James Wan, until the wee hours of the morning... But I digress...
Beowulf was, well, underwhelming. Director Robert Zemeckis has returned to the motion capture process first used in The Polar Express. It's been a few years and the technology has advanced. The creepy dead eyes of Polar are gone, but other problems remain. It's hard to pinpoint completely, but it just isn't there. Closer, but still off-target. It's a little 300, a little Final Fantasy...
We saw about twenty minutes of the movie as well as a few trailers. There are some cool moments and the impressive cast that includes Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich and Ray Winstone look great in their digital incarnations.
Writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary were on hand to discuss the film afterwards.
"The Technology has liberated us, liberated Bob Zemeckis, to do whatever was in his imagination," says Avary.
The writing duo first began the script a decade ago upon realizing a shared passion for the source material.
"It's the best of all worlds. It's got monsters, dragons, swords," says Avary. "What's not to like?"
"It was this amazing, creepy little story," says Gaiman.
Beowulf was shot entirely using the latest motion capture technology, a process which Zemeckis quoted as roughly $1 million dollars per minute of footage.
Although the footage we saw included a bloody de-limbing and a mostly naked digital Angelina Jolie, the release is planned as a PG-13.
The release is still a few months away and it's likely that the footage witnessed tonight was not entirely finished. Either way, it's 3-D and has some cool moments, so we're still willing to give it a chance come the November release.
Okay, it's late...or early now and I've got to get some shut eye. More from Comic-Con tomorrow (or later today rather)!