Why So Blu?

Comic-Con 2013: EW – The Visionaries

Hall H’s second panel on Thursday was appropriately titled EW: The Visionaries and the idea behind it was to bring three prolific storytellers of the modern day together on a panel and discuss how they can take things in their head and make them real.  The panel consisted of Amazing Spider-Man‘s Marc Webb, Gravity‘s Alfonso Cuaron and Shaun of the Dead‘s Edgar Wright.   The panel tackled many themes and inherited challenges each of the three filmmakers tackle in their success and I tried my best to capture some of the highlights below.  Enjoy!

Marc Webb said the villain Electro both intrigued and challenged him because he’s a guy who can blend with electricity and ever since he was a kid, he has been frightened by him.  Spidey has to empathize with Electro and create that emotional component to make him more interesting.

Alfonso talked about the contraption they built to simulate “gravity” for Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.  He said both actors would gang up on him and make fun of his accent mocking him with a Cuban one instead of Mexican.  He said it took him 4.5 years to complete Gravity.

This was my first brush with Edgar Wright.   And I must say, what a pleasant man!  He joked that he’s only on this panel because his initials are EW.  Haha.  He said his new film is a challenge because of the fight scenes, which pits a reunion comedy into explosive action sequences.  He said the challenge was to film these without cutting and he was fortunate to have six actors up to the challenge.   They all trained with the stunt team and even the 15-year-old boy in the film was Hit Girl’s stunt double in KickAss.  He also introduces the younger crowd in Hall H to the F-word.  Lol.

They all took turns talking about their newest films, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Gravity and The Worlds End and what appeals to each of them about their projects.  They spent some time discussing amazing accidents like Alfonso’s long cut in Children of Men and Simon Pegg breaking his hand in The Worlds End.

Finally, the panel discussed 3-D.  Alfonso does not like the format, but said Gravity thrives off of it.  I found out from Marc Webb that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will be a post converted 3-D film.  Boo!

Alfonso Cuaron and Marc Webb (above)

Edgar Wright (because I couldn’t take a blurrier picture)