Guy Ritchie, Joel Silver & Dark Castle Panel (RAIN talk)

Comic-Con 2008: Guy Ritchie, Joel Silver & Dark Castle Panel
By Kevin Kelly on July 24, 2008 at 8:38 pm

(Rain's part scroll down to 6:03)

Gerard Butler and Guy Ritchie from RocknRolla, "Korean music sensation" Rain from Ninja Assassin, and producer Joel Silver present Dark Castle's theatrical and direct-to-DVD slate.

The suddenly massive contingent of preteen female Comic-Con attendees swooned at the sight of Korean pop star/Ninja Assassin star Rain, and 300/RocknRolla hunk Gerard Butler, at Joel Silver’s Dark Castle Entertainment presentation. Jeremy Piven threatened to take his shirt off. Crickets.

Highlights:
–Dark Castle is investing in a bunch of direct-to-DVD sequels of moderate horror hits; judging by the reaction to The Hills Run Red, no one cares.
–"Korean music video sensation." Rain is a legitimate sensation. At least with the girls were just still a little turned on from Twilight. Boys hold their hardons for "Gerry" Butler.
–Asking Joel Silver, Jeremy Piven and/or Guy Ritchie for words of encouragement is just about the biggest faux pas you can make as an attendee in Hall H.
–Joel Silver reveals the ten-words-or-less pitch that landed financing for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movie.
–Madonna and Guy Ritchie's relationship was solid enough during filming of RocknRolla that she was tasked with shooting syringes into Gerard Butler's ass

6:39 - Q: Gerard, what's your favorite memory from being on set?

A: "Well, nothing more than getting a shot of B12 from his [Guy Ritchie's] wife Madonna. She was basically like the nurse, she came in and was all ‘drop your pants!’ and she stuck me in the ass."

6:38 - Q: "Gerard, did you get to improv much on the movie?"

A: (from Guy Ritchie) "Nope! I wouldn't allow it!"

The other panelists are begging Gerry to take his shirt off… It’s like an Elvis concert down there in the front

6:37 - Q: "For Gerard Butler, you’ve done a lot of different roles, what are you looking to get into next?"

A: Halle Berry.

6:33 - Ludacris is talking. Zzz.

6:31 - "Rocknrolla is better than sex!" — Gerard Butler

6:30 - Piven is overwhelmed by everyone's dedication, "I celebrate every one of you! I’m in a service position, and I salute every one of you."

Someone nearby "Did he just offer to service the audience?!"

Piven is out of chocolate and promises to take his shirt off. Yikes.

6:29 - Someone asks Guy Ritchie about the Sherlock Holmes movie, which is in preproduction now. "Is it happening?" "Yes!" It has a contemporary spin on it, and of course Robert Downey Jr. in it.

Joel Silver: "t’s like James Bond in 1891!"

6:27 - "How do you prepare for these roles?"

"Well, I get out of bed, I take a shower (sometimes), and I just go to work. You know, I sort of feel weird talking about this, because when I hear other people talking about their method, I sort of just say "Oh, shut up." You just do it. Man, I sound like an American saying that. I’ve done it now."

6:26 - Wow, someone mentioned Phantom of the Opera, and the girl groupies go nuts yet again.

6:25 - Butler wants to know, "DId you like the trailer we showed? Well make some fuckin’ noise then!” Next question: "How do you think people will react to this film? You have such a varied cast."

Butler: "Well, we have a cool group of guys and girls. You lick your lips for this and sit back and go 'Yeah!' It defines cool."

Pause. "Well, the licking the lips thing was a little homosexual. But you get my point."

6:24 - Piven is talking about how he saw Lock Stock "with his good buddy Peter Berg" (cue the namedrop) and that his '77 Bronco broke down on the way from seeing it. Rough roots, rough toots. Piven wanted his role to be different than the character he plays in Entourage. It turned out to be easy because Ritchie had never even seen Entourage.
6:23 - People don’t really know this, but the Comic-Con panelists get little chocolates on their table, and Butler has started tossing them out to the girl groupies. They are going nuts for it.

6:22 - Butler is talking about how much he wanted to work with Guy Ritchie after seeing Lock Stock and Snatch… oddly enough he doesn’t mention Swept Away.

6:20 - Holy trainwreck, Batman. A woman who is clearly on in years is making her "own movie" and she talks about casting and executive producing and writing and directing, and she dramatically says "For the love of god, please tell me that filmmaking gets easier as you you get more experience!" Everyone on stage is bewildered.

Literally. And then everyone passes on answering the question.

FInally Joel Silver leans over and says "No, it never gets easier."

6:19 - "TAKE IT OFF" one girl screams. "You’re funny," he says.

6:17 - Here come the onslaught of questions for "Gerry." "Thank you SO much for being here. I get the feeling that you really enjoyed making movies like this. Do you keep planning on making good storytelling movies?" I mean, honestly, you drive all this way, get up there, and ask that? Butler namedrops 300, and people go nuts.

Next up: "All of your roles have been physical, do you like those kinds of roles? Was this movie like that?"

"Not at all, this wasn’t nearly as physical as 300. It was easy, and I looked forward to going to work every day. I got sick making this movie, that was challenging." In response to that, a gaggle of his girlfans down front swoon and go "Awwwwwwwww."

6:16 - Guy Ritchie calls this a "Spillover from Lock Stock and Snatch." It’s a "look into the underbelly of the subculture" in London

6:15 - They trot out Susan Downey, Ludacris (I can’t call him Chris Bridges), Jeremy Piven, "Gerry" Butler, and Guy Ritchie. Joel Silver jokes that “No one knows who Susan Downey is… she runs my company so I had this card made for her.” He whips out a namecard that says "Mrs. Tony Stark" on it.. Does this mean they’re having sex? Ew, Mr. Silver.

6:13 - It looks like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Part 2. But Chris "Ludacris" Bridges actually looks fairly decent in this. Color me shocked.

6:12 - What keeps throwing me is Jeremy Piven in this thing, and I couldn’t stand him in Smokin’ Aces. Do we really need him in another movie

6:11 - RocknRolla trailer rolls. "What’s a Rocknrolla? We want it all." It’s The New School vs. The Wild Bunch, Gerard Butler is part of The Wild Bunch.

6:10 - Now it’s RocknRolla time.

6:08 - Last question is surprisingly for Naomi, and someone wanted to know if she’d like to play the character of Selena again. "I’d LOVE to" she says. Apparently she and Cillian Murphy were supposed to be in 28 Weeks Later, but obviously they weren’t. "I’m waiting on the third movie so I can play her again!"

6:04 - Zzzzzzz. Everyone around me is falling asleep (the Rain gaggle is all up front) while waiting on Gerard Butler

6:03 - Rain is actually pretty shy, which is refreshing. He said "Well, this was a hard movie to work on. My first girlfriend was a sword, my second girlfriend was a ninja chain… They were my family!" When asked "What do you think people’s reaction will be to this movie?" He replies with "Well, I don’t know… I just am trying to do my best." That’s about the fourth time I’ve heard him say he’s doing his best.

6:01 - Someone wanted to know if ninjas only use old school weapons in the movie, and McTeigue said yes, you won’t see them blazing away with guns.

5:59 - McTeigue is telling us how they decided to cast Rain, and throughout the explanation, whenever he says the word Rain, people go nuts. He’s a huge pop star overseas, but apparently I haven’t been watching that channel. Silver said "Jet Li told me long ago [way to name drop, Silver] that martial arts is very similar to dancing." Which is why Rain took so well to the role.

5:56 - The first girl to ask a question says she has one question: "I love you Rain!" Which isn’t a question. She follows up with, "I’ve been following your career for a long time *giggle* and I love you *giggle* and I think you’re great." I keep waiting on her to say she’s been watching him while he showers.

A trio of girls then gets up to ask him why he took this role, and he said "Well, I hope to meet a blonde girl!" Which appeared to be some sort of a joke. Although I have a feeling it’s probably not far from the truth.

5:54 - Here comes director James McTeigue, Naomi Harris, and… "arch rival of Stephen Colbert….RAIN!"

"Wow, it’s like mini-Twilight" someone says behind us when people start screaming for Rain.



5:51 - Now they’re on to Ninja Assassin, and when Joel Silver says the name "Rain" people go nuts. Although not quite the level of Twilight nuts that we witnessed earlier. Here’s a clip that Silver tells us is "Just for Comic-Con, so lets not talk about it to anyone else."

"Raised to be a warrior…Trained to be a killer." Scenes of kids training, teenagers training, adults shedding tons of blood with knives. This movie is all done in red and black, even with red and black washing machines in a laundromat scene. Someone cue the Les Miserables soundtrack. Ninjas, swords, explosions, car chases… I don’t really know what this is about, but there’s a lot of screaming and flying blood.

The ninja chucks a Chinese star at the screen, which turns into a little embellish between the words Ninja and Assassin in the logo.

5:50 - Now Silver is pimping out Whiteout, which we saw a lot of at last year’s Comic-Con. he basically tells us it stars Kate Beckinsale and Alex O’Loughlin from Moonlight, although "sadly, that’s over now." They also have a movie called The Factory coming out, with John Cusack. "It's a thriller, like Silence of the Lambs" according to Silver, and it'll be out sometime in 2010.

5:46 - Writer Marc Andreyko and artist Jonathan Wayshak take the stage along with Erik Olsen again, to talk about the book, which hits stands in October. Will there be a movie version of Ferrymen? "That’s up to you guys!" says Erik. Based on the audience response, which is basically nil, I'd say that we won’t be seeing a Ferrymen movie anytime soon.

- Joel Silver is back to tell us about the Dark Castle comic book label that they’ve formed in conjunction with DC Comics' Wildstorm imprint. They have their first book coming out called The Ferrymen, which they are about to show us a trailer for.

"Sell your soul to the devil, and there will be Hell to pay." is the tagline for the book, written by Marc Andreyko, who co-wrote the brilliantly creepy Torso with Brian Michael Bendis.

5:41 - Erik Olsen, Sophie Monk, Tad Hilgenbrick, and John Carchiette take the stage to talk about the film. Sophie Monk wants everyone to know "There’s some seriously twisted stuff in this movie that I wouldn’t want my dad to see."

No one asks any questions, ouch. Even though Sophie also tells us "I got so comfortable being covered in blood that I actually started going to the supermarket like that." That’s method acting, folks. She also sings the creepy lullaby at the beginning of the trailer.

5:38 - Here's a clip from The Hills Run Red, it opens with someone singing "Hush little baby, don’t say a word…" just so you know it’ll be creepy.

Razor blades, buckets of blood, naked girls, a creepy guy in a mask. It’s Horror Formula 101. Coming to DVD in 2009.

5:35 - Joel Silver pops on out stage, all chubby, sweaty, and swarthy. He’s telling us how geek movies aren’t the "bastard stepchild" of the movies anymore. "Those pictures you just saw have made about a billion dollars. And we’ve decided to broaden out the label to do other types of movies."

Direct to video movies, that is: Return To House On Haunted Hill was last year, and this year is The Hills Run Red.

5:33 - They’re rolling out a clip reel to show us the "history of Dark Castle." It’s a bunch of creepy movie scenes… There’s Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, Gothika, House of Wax, The Reaping… Creeptastic. A person sitting nearby says "Wow, they really make their company look a lot more exciting than it actually is.

Source: http://blog.spout.com/2008/07/24 ... e-dark-castle-panel
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