Writer/director James Gunn led his Super cast onto the stage of Hall H moments ago. Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker were also joined by producers Ted Hope and Miranda Bailey.
Launching with a trailer, Gunn apologized for its unfinished nature, explaining that it just been finished on a home computer just for Comic-Con.
The trailer has Wilson as Frank D’Arbo and Tyler as Sarah Helgeland, both working in a diner and falling in love. They kiss and we flash forward to a wedding which we learn fell apart because of Sarah’s drug use, leaving Frank distraught. Kevin Bacon is seen in one shot, apparently as Sarah’s new boyfriend.
Frank winds up creating a superhero identity called the Crimson Bolt, dressed in a red bodysuit with a logo on the chest of his own mask in a starbust (see our rendering at the bottom of the story).
Ellen Page plays Libby who becomes Boltie, the Crimson Bolt’s sidekick. We see her trying to talk Frank into letting her join, doing kicks and rolling on the floor. Her costume is a green and yellow variation of Frank’s, but with Kato-style mask instead of the Bolt’s cowl.
There are a number of action shots, including a single shot of a costumed Fillion as The Holy Avenger, grinning and winking to the camera. The final shot has Boltie lighting a stick of dynamite and throwing it a man in a field of grass, completely destroying him in an explosion.
Following the trailer was a short scene with Frank waiting in line outside a movie theater when someone cuts in front of him. He tries to tell the man to leave, but he ignores him, so Frank storms off to his car. There’s a shot of a little girl on the street staring as we see Frank’s underwear pressed against his back window, clearly changing in the back seat of his car.
Frank comes back with a wrench, marching right up to the guy who says, “Come on! We just saw you!”
Frank violently hits him in the face with the wrench and then attacks his screaming girlfriend as well.
Hope described the entire film as “an f-ed up, low-rent Watchmen,” which he said was the major reason he wanted to make it.
Though the trailer featured The White Stripes’ I Think We Are Going to be Friends and The Beastie Boys’ Sabotage, Gunn says that the final film will mostly use “underground eclectic rock pop,” plus a song from Rob Zombie who will also cameo as the voice of God in the film.
There’s one more song by Cheap Trick that they’re tying to get the rights to, so Tyler decided to address the band through Comic-Con.
“Cheap Trick,” she said, “Hello if you’re out there, there’s a song of yours we really want to use and we think you’re amazing and we love you. Could you please let us use it for almost nothing?”
Fillion described his own character, the Holy Avenger as a religious superhero with “churisma.”
“It’s kind of that ‘I really want him’ power,” he explained, “but mixed in with the church.”
Steve Agee has a cameo in the film inside a comic book store, which Wilson said is very brief.
“He has one line in the movie,” Wilson said, “It’s a four-letter word and it starts with ‘C’.”
The website for the film has also just launched at TheCrimsonBolt.com, but, for the moment, it’s only a place to sign up for future updates.
Check out our sketch of the Super logo, featured on Crimson Bolt’s chest, below:
