The Hero Complex Film Fest is held at the Mann Chinese
in Hollywood and showcases the Superhero genre in film. This was the second year it
was being held and they had quite the guest list there to talk about their
movies. Today’s films were Superman and Superman II: The Donner Cut and the
special guest? None other than Richard Donner himself. There was a great
Q&A with Donner and host Geoff Boucher, but he wasn’t the only special
guest as Mike Mignola was also there (he created this year’s poster) and of course
there was the announced DC Comics interview with Geoff Johns and Jim Lee.
Let’s cover the comic news first since that’s what everyone
is wondering about. It began with Jim Lee joking that he ran out of writer’s to
work with so he was got stuck with Geoff. They revealed that the first story
arc (likely six issues) will take place in the past and not be on the same
timeline as the rest of the rebooted books, but that the second will. The arc will be the Justice League’s
origin; tthey felt they never really had an origin that grabbed you and
was memorable. They joked about one of them involving the JL fighting trees or
something. Johns said that the theme for his run is: Art, Humor and Heroics
although I could be wrong about art as they were talking over each other at the
time.
Jim talked about the reboot or re-launch and about how he recalled
when DC and John Byrne had re-launched Superman, that even though he knew the
origin it was still interesting to see his take on it to find out the
differences. Lee also mentioned that with the Justice League and the reboot
that they wanted to modernize them and make them more contemporary so that they
could be the superheroes for a new generation. In fact he said it three times
so I’m pretty sure that was the main goal of the reboot: Contemporary and
Modern. Lee also alluded that Geoff played a big part in the ideas for the
different characters across the board.
They then played a video from Grant Morrison which talked
about his run that’s starting with Rags Morales on Action Comics and how it
will be the only other reboot title to take place in the past. Grant mostly
talked about how he’s returning it to being a big action title and that no one
will be able to expect what’s next. It really sounded like they were keeping
his small town roots, but redeveloping his past again... for the modern era.
They spoke about the day and date digital and that the main
goal was to be on all of those millions of ipad, iphone and android platforms
with it. Johns said himself that he even scoffed at digital at first, but
thinks it’s viable for the medium and that there is a different type of energy
as you go panel by panel with the app. They both said that they’re going to
experiment more with the new medium and Lee said that it will do different
things and look different then its print counterpart.
The Q&A was full of great stories from Donner himself
and started with an intro from Geoff Johns, who worked as his assistant for
many years. Donner talked about how he had to do Superman in order to save it
from the Hungarians which amused everyone. He talked about how large the
original script was and that there was always plans to do three movies, each
with a focus on a different city in Superman’s life which would act as a different development with the character, ie: Kyrpton, Smallville
and Metropolis.
He said for Smallville they wanted to find the most Norman
Rockwell, Americana town they could and they did in British Columbia, Canada. The
location scout found a great farm, but the owner hadn’t kept up with it so
they actually planted and maintained the wheat that was grown in the field themselves. That's amazing since the field is huge and they weren't filming anywhere near it at the time. There are several more stories about when he first got the script hung-over on
the toilet and when he first met with Marlon Brando, but that was part of the
experience of being there. A fan did ask him why he had never directed an X-Men
movie since his wife, Laura has produced all of them and he said they don’t work
well together so for the sake of his marriage, they don’t. Of course he still
gave her a hard time by saying she had also never asked, which wasn’t true. Also there is nothing like hearing Richard Donner say, "Kneel before Zod." It was awesome.
There you have it in a nutshell and I didn’t even go into
the small piece on Mike Mignola and Hellboy, they said that the festival was
successful enough that they would try to have it again next year (hopefully not
at the same time as the Playboy Jazz Festival since it made traffic brutal to
and fro). I think it was an interesting mix of comics and superhero movies that
appealed to comic fans more than movie fans. If anything Comic Con could learn a
thing or two when they’re shilling out NBC’s fall line up this year... nah.