All the stars come out for Comic-Con

Will nerds someday rule the world? If you go by the recent Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, they already do. In 40 years, Comic-Con (CC) has gone from intimate comics convention to pop culture phenomenon, attended by over 100,000 fans from all over the world who come knowing it’s okay to indulge their Star Trek or Dark Knight obsession for the convention’s four days; arriving in costume is strictly optional.

Hollywood studios roll out marketing juggernauts aimed at these film, TV and comic-book devotees, knowing that any cast member they send out, any free T-shirt, button or poster they give away, will be eagerly received, collected and, in the case of wearable swag, displayed with pride by a willing audience.

(Incidentally, the quantity of swag given out is one of Comic-Con’s many lures. At many of the movie and TV panels, tickets to claim special memorabilia are usually handed out, to be claimed from what CC calls the Fulfillment Room. “I don’t want to get near the carpets in that place,” joked comedian Patton Oswalt.)

Proof of the power of Comic-Con is the number of A-list actors who turn up for the panels promoting their respective movies or TV series. In Hall H of the San Diego Convention Center, for instance, which seats over 6,000 and is rigged like a state-of-the-art cinema, Day 1 featured a starry lineup rivaled only by the Oscars or a Vanity Fair party.

Before the convention started, it was rumored that Angelina Jolie would attend; only at Comic-Con do such rumors actually pan out. Clad in skintight black leather, the stunningly beautiful Jolie did fly in to promote her movie Salt, where she plays a CIA agent mistaken for a Russian spy. Partner Brad Pitt also had the animated feature Megamind to promote, but “Brad couldn’t be here because Angelina is here and someone has to watch the kids,” said Will Ferrell, Pitt’s costar, who did attend in full blue Megamind regalia.

Other stars who passed through Hall H that day included Oscar winners Jeff Bridges (for Tron Legacy) and Helen Mirren (Red), Bruce Willis (Red), Sylvester Stallone (The Expendables), Liev Schreiber (Salt), Aaron Eckhart (Battle: Los Angeles), Mary-Louise Parker (Red), and directors like Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), JJ Abrams (Star Trek), Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Phillip Noyce (Salt).

A film buff all my life, I decided to go to Comic-Con with my three sisters, all of whom are pop-culture connoisseurs and the youngest of whom is a filmmaker.

Once you announce your intention to attend CC, you find you’re instantly classed with the most notorious type of CC-goer — the geek in costume whose idea of a fashion accessory is a light saber.

“Oh, you’re one of those people,” my sister’s best friend told her.

“When you’re done being a dork, you should come visit,” another friend said.

If you can get past all the teasing, you’re in for a wild but worthwhile ride. Hall H being the Mecca for cineastes since all of the year’s hottest movies are previewed there, people started lining up to get in at 1 p.m. the previous day. Not quite as rabid, my sisters ventured out at 4 a.m. to secure our places for Hall H’s events, which started at 10 a.m. We got seats, all right, but even at such an ungodly hour about a hundred people were already in line ahead of us.

The forces of good and evil can run rampant in Hall H, as evidenced by two incidents this year: in a rare burst of Geek Love, one male fanboy proposed to his girlfriend during a Q&A session; while on another day two geeks battled it out for a coveted first-come, first-serve seat, leading to a stabbing — not with a protractor, as was first rumored, but with a ballpoint pen (other geeks subdued the assailant until security arrived).

But on Day One, Megamind was first up. In addition to meeting the cast, specially cut trailers, teasers and highlight reels are shown exclusively to CC-ites, who can document the panels all they want (all the better to disseminate online), but are exhorted not to record any of the content shown onscreen.

After the Megamind trailer was shown in 3D, cast member Tina Fey hugged a cardboard cutout of the absent Brad Pitt, saying, “I have him where I want him,” costar Jonah Hill announced he would be playing The Hulk in the new Avengers movie, while Will Ferrell, who painted his face blue under a bulbous helmet, felt that, with Megamind plus the new Smurf movie, “blue characters will continue to be popular.”

Up next was Tron Legacy, the long-awaited sequel to the cult 1982 sci-fi flick starring Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner. Both stars will appear in the follow-up, with director Joe Kosinski announcing that Bridges will be morphed back into his 35-year-old self by the latest CGI technology. Also on the panel were Garrett Hedlund, who plays Bridges’ son, Michael Sheen and Olivia Wilde.

Tron Legacy was clearly the highlight of Day 1: Kosinski previewed a full eight minutes of the film, which boasts Blade Runner-esque special effects and a soundtrack by Daft Punk (big Tron fans, according to Kosinski). Technicians from Skywalker Sound also recorded us in the audience chanting and stomping for use in the movie’s gladiatorial game-of-death scenes.

More cinematic treats followed, including Johnny Depp hamming it up once again in a special preview of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, in which Capt. Keith Richards — I mean, Jack Sparrow — sets off to find the fountain of youth along with Penelope Cruz.

Disney Studios, which is releasing Tron Legacy and Pirates, made another special announcement: forget Eddie Murphy, forget the theme-park ride — they are remaking The Haunted Mansion with esteemed horror director Guillermo del Toro, who is also writing and producing a terrifying remake of ’70s horror flick Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

Salt was up next with the surprisingly lighthearted Jolie, whose penchant for dark, damaged characters made her a natural to play a dark, damaged CIA agent surrounded by secrets. Jolie, who did most of her own stunts, talked about injuring herself doing a “ridiculously easy” one: “jumping into a doorway and shooting sideways I rolled into a desk and cracked my head open — not my skull but I started bleeding and have a little scar here,” she said pointing to her forehead. “And then I thought I had some problem because I couldn’t hear everybody well and I thought, oh, my God, I’ve done it. I’d forgotten I had my earplugs in from the movie.”

Asked repeatedly by fans about why she chose to play the character of Evelyn Salt, Jolie remained gracious and charming: “She’s very unusual and there’s something not quite right about her, and there’s definitely something not quite right about me,” she smiled.

The cavalcade of stars continued, with Lost’s Michelle Rodriguez and Aaron Eckhart promoting Battle: Los Angeles, an alien war movie best described as District 9 meets Black Hawk Down, and RED (Retired Extremely Dangerous), about retired CIA agents called in for one last job, represented by Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker and Karl Urban. Costars John Malkovich and Richard Dreyfus were absent, but Willis admitted how excited he was to work with “Jaws,” (Dreyfus), while Mirren described Malkovich as a Renaissance man.

For a number of these Hollywood players Comic-Con is a coming-out party for their closet geek — even Stallone referred to himself as a nerd at one point — and a glimpse of the directors, producers and writers who keep the industry afloat revealed that Hollywood behind the scenes is run by a bunch of film nerds and comic-book geeks. (You’d have to be to create such brilliantly escapist fare that typically glorifies the underdog.)

JJ Abrams, writer/producer of such TV series as Felicity, Alias, Lost, and movies like Star Trek, Cloverfield and Mission: Impossible 3, used to work at a comic-book store, while director Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Serenity fame, who announced at Comic-Con that he is directing the new Marvel Comic Avengers movie, has been a comic-book fan all his life. Both were hailed at CC as “The Visionaries,” proving that in terms of the pop-culture we live and the references we all share, the geeks shall inherit the earth.