“Snow White and the Huntsman,” the fairy tale project that begins shooting next week in the U.K. with Kristen Stewart of “Twilight” fame as the lead, has some tough hurdles to overcome. It’s competing with another “Snow White” project from Relativity Media that has already begun filming and features Julia Roberts as the evil queen. It’s also set to come out June 1, three months after Relativity’s “Snow White” movie will debut — and close to two months before a Comic-Con International audience will be back in San Diego.
What’s a studio to do?
How about recruit fans at Comic-Con 2011 with some stills of the cast in costume, a charming British director with an impressive commercial reel and a crew of good-looking lead actors? That’s what Universal Pictures did Saturday afternoon during a panel featuring Stewart, evil queen Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth as the huntsman and Sam Claflin (“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”) as the prince.
It was one of a number of high-profile pitches from Hollywood, blatantly trying to channel the fan energy pooling in every hall, room and corridor of Comic-Con into buzz and ticket sales for new projects. Along with “Snow White and the Huntsman,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Cowboys and Aliens” and “Conan the Barbarian” offered up cast members and more to eager audiences at the festival, which closed Sunday.
The fun of the “Snow White” panel came from the cast, with Theron providing most of the comic relief. Since the cast just met each other recently, moderator Dave Karger, from Entertainment Weekly magazine, conducted a series of ice-breakers, questions like “What are you like on the set? Do you like to improv?”
“I’m very well-behaved,” said Stewart, who added she is excited to wear her armor and carry a shield as a Snow White with little resemblance to the Disney princess that sings to the birds. “I take myself very seriously.”
“You’ll be fine, Kristen,” responded Theron, who compared her evil queen to a serial killer, one with a fantastic costume designed by Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood. “I’m an Oscar winner, so I take myself very seriously,” she said with a laugh.
Stewart got into the fun when asked whether she’s like her character. “I’d like to be more like her …. But I am the fairest in the land, and I have a seriously good heart,” she said. Added Hemsworth: “And she really likes apples.”
Sanders also introduced a photo of his eight dwarves — a who’s who of the British acting scene: Nick Frost, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, Eddie Izzard and Stephen Graham. Why there are eight dwarves? “Because there are a few great lines when one of them gets killed,” Sanders said.
One fan asked about the casting challenges Universal had with finding its huntsman, a role Hemsworth took only after a long line of actors, including Viggo Mortensen and Tom Hardy, turned it down. Said Hemsworth, fresh off his role as superhero Thor: “The teaser was impressive, the script was fantastic. I’m pretty simple. Either I like it or I don’t. This sounded like fun…. Plus, there was no one else left.”
‘Glee’s’ graduation quandry
At the “Glee” panel held Sunday, some things got murkier when co-creator and executive producer Brad Falchuk attempted to clear things up. Remember all those reports in which co-creator Ryan Murphy was quoted as saying stars Chris Colfer, Lea Michele and Cory Monteith would be graduating this season and not returning for the show’s fourth? And remember Chris Colfer commenting on it as well? Well, Falchuck is saying the exodus isn’t so.
“Just because they’re graduating, doesn’t mean they are leaving the show,” he said. “It is not our intention to let them go … they are not done with the show.”
Later, Falchuk said the executive producers had explored the option of a spin-off with with Kurt (Colfer) and Rachel (Michele) but are “leaning against doing it.”
Falchuk reiterated that the upcoming season would be less heavy on stunt casting and special episodes. But he didn’t deny that a tribute episode was a possibility.
And don’t cry a river for Mercedes (Amber Riley). She will be getting another love interest whom she will have met over the summer. He’ll drive her arc in the first half of the season.
Garfield is Spidey sensitive
After the teaser trailer for “The Amazing Spider-Man” was released this week to lukewarm reception, Sony was charged with wowing audiences at Comic-Con with its reboot of the web-slinger franchise, this time directed by Marc Webb (“(500) Days of Summer”).
The trailer played well to the packed room Friday, but it was the new Peter Parker himself, Andrew Garfield, who won fans over: He stood up in the audience in Hall H in a low-rent Spider-Man costume and delivered an emotional speech about how much he loved the character.
“I wouldn’t be able to stand here if it wasn’t for Spider-Man. I’m living out every skinny boy’s fantasy of being stronger. We all wished we had the courage to stand up for ourselves, for the people we loved. …This is the coolest moment of my life. Thank you for being here to share it with me.”
He continued his tribute to Spider-Man onstage: “Peter Parker has been the one fictional character I related to most growing up, that and Holden Caulfield. I wore my first Spider-Man suit when I was 2 on Halloween.”
Sony endeared itself to fans even further by debuting footage of Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors, the scientist who turns into Spider-Man’s nemesis The Lizard. The studio showed footage of Dr. Connors transforming into the evil reptilian. Ifans then bounded onstage and delivered a few garbled sentences.
He made a big impression behind the scenes at the convention too: Ifans was cited by security when he bullied past it to get to the panel. In a statement Sony acknowledged the actor was detained and issued a citation, adding that he “deeply regrets this incident.”
Dino might powers ‘Terra Nova’
When Fox screened a portion of its new epic sci-fi series “Terra Nova,” — on which Steven Spielberg is an executive producer — at Comic-Con on Saturday, one thing was very clear: People dig humans getting eaten by dinosaurs. In fact, the fans practically begged the producers to give them more in future episodes — that is, if the series, which premieres Sept. 26, makes it a full season.
“Of course we like to kill people,” said executive producer Jose Molina, answering the plea. “Yeah, you’re going to see some pretty good dino-on-human action.”
In the time-travel epic, humans in the 22nd century — specifically the Shannon family — go back millions of years to prehistoric Earth in an attempt to save the human race from extinction. There’s dense tropical forest, an enigmatic commander (Stephen Lang, who played a similarly brazen character in “Avatar”), guns, weird fruit, a so-called group of bad guys known as Sixers and, of course, the dinos.
Lang, who was the only cast member to appear on the panel after the screening, said that the crowd’s excitement from a scene in which a dinosaur chomps off a human head might compel network executives to mandate one eating per week.
But, said Kevin Black, visual effects supervisor: “Doing dinos on a TV schedule is a challenge. I think we’re getting better as we go.”
— Tribune Newspapers reporter Yvonne Villarreal contributed
