After standing in a line that loops around the building and waiting out a Halo panel, I am ready to let you (yes, you) in on the exciting news from Legendary Pictures, and all from the comfort of your own home! Guillermo del Toro will be here, and if you read Alex’s post, you’ll know he has the mouth of a sailor and is sure to be entertaining. Some of the movies covered include Pacific Rim, Seventh Son, Paradise Lost, and Mass Effect, and there’s sure to be more to come.
Hit the jump (and refresh) to learn more about Legendary’s upcoming projects!
-Oh, they thought this would be a “small, intimate gathering.” Poor things.
–Pacific Rim is up first. There’s Guillermo del Toro!
-Charlie Day is here, too, but del Toro just heiled at the audience so he kind of stole the show already.
-del Toro on Legendary: “If I weren’t barren, I would bear Legendary’s child.”
-“Who are the perfect f*cking actors for the role? To make a movie of this size and scope and cast it with the greatest f*cking actors for the role is a dream come true for me.”
-“It is my duty to commit to film the finest f*cking monsters ever to come on the screen, and to build the greatest f*cking robots ever to come on the screen.”
-Basically, Guillermo del Toro can’t stop cursing. It’s funny because he has an accent.
-del Toro just called Idris Elba “the f*cking man.” Damn straight!
-Charlie Hunnam is also present. Apparently he and del Toro have been trying to work together for a long while, and this is the first time that they’ve been able to come together.
-Charlie Day: “I don’t really have a fancy accent, but I promise to work on one by the time this movie comes around.”
-Guillermo del Toro is a big fan of Always Sunny. He asked to be a fat wino extra. I would watch the hell out of that.
–Pacific Rim is about “Giant f*cking monsters against giant f*cking robots.” “One of the things that really fascinates us is really big things against really little things.”
-The movie’s concept was a big what-if: what happens if a giant creature pops out and starts attacking things? How would the world change? What kind of weapons would be developed? How will beachfront property fare in the new monstrous economy?
-“Everything in the movie is about scale, but it’s beautiful how it poses a little human-scale problem against a giant-scale problem.”
-Aww, they’re done with Pacific Rim. I’ll miss del Toro’s foul mouth.
-Jeff Bridges is out, and he’s getting a lot of boos. There’s a mean bunch of nerds in here.
-The screen shots of Seventh Son are absolutely gorgeous. There’s a flaming horse and stuff! It looks like a video game.
-Sergei Bodrov said “It’s a story…it’s a story about Jeff!”
-“How did you get Jeff to do this? Did you smoke to him? Because it’s a fact that Jeff smokes…we didn’t smoke, but we will someday.” Russians talking about weed is pretty funny, have to say.
-Jeff said that Tron “rubbed against his acting fur,” given that everything was done in post and he couldn’t have a set or costumes.
-Bradley Cooper is here for Paradise Lost. He said it’s a little different than it was for last year’s Midnight Meat Train.
–Paradise Lost will be striving for the big scope that comes with the property, given Satan’s fall from grace and all that.
-Bradley Cooper was really into Satan being depicted as a sympathetic character, and thought it would be great if “the guy from The Hangover ended up as Lucifer.
-Cooper looks at it as a small story about nuclear family in which one brother betrays the other.
-Alex Proyas is developing the character with Cooper, and since they’re still in early days, his influence on the character is pretty strong.
-The main thing to avoid in this is the traditional visuals that come with the material, and Proyas is attempting to stray away from it.
-The couple of shots they have available are clearly just concept art, but they’re stunning. I can only hope they keep with the color palette for the actual movie.
–Mass Effect is up next!
-They’re hoping that picking a game property with a deeper world and more immersive plot will make the movie less likely to suck horribly.
-A trailer for Mass Effect 3 seems a little odd in this context.
-Mark Protosevich on video games to movies: It’s easy to be seduced by pretty action scenes and immersive gameplay and think they’ll make a good movie, but a game needs to have a good story and interesting world in order to make it as a movie. “Initially, they can be very attractive, sort of like a very attractive girl. But when you actually sit down and talk to them, you might not necessarily find a lot of depth of character there.”
-They’re saying this universe is “as rich as Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Someone’s got their hopes up high for this thing not to flop!
