Ah, Comic Con. The 42-year old conference on comics and superheros celebrated its annual bash at San Diego on Saturday, and as expected, there were some high-profile comics, actors, movie trailers and promos to catch everyone’s attention.
Possibly the most interesting piece - and also the one that was most anticipated - was the initial footage for “The Amazing Spider-Man”, starring Andrew Garfield as the superhero. Garfield surprised the audience when he walked up in a Spider-Man suit and gave a speech about the movie ... though he looked almost as surprised as the audience that he had to wear the costume.
Andrew Garfield had earlier played an acclaimed role as Eduardo Saverin in the hit “The Social Network”, a movie about the early days of the online social network Facebook. He replaces Tobery Maguire, who played Spiderman in the first three film versions based on the superhero comics.
Ironically, Ryan Ifans, who stars in “The Amazing Spider-Man” movie as chief villian The Lizard, was reportedly arrested and charged for battery during the Comic Con event. Reuters reported that the actor, who “who smelled of alcohol” at the time of the battery, pushed a female security guard before the film premiere.
Among other celebrities at Comic Con 2011 were Conan O‘ Brien, who debuted his alter-ego, “The Flaming C.” The TBS talk show host made his first apperance at the event, and promoted his soon-to-be-released animated motion picture that features his animated alter-ego. A press release for the movie said that Bruce Timm, who was the lead animator behind “Batman: The Animated Series)”, designed the Flaming C “during an impromptu 15-minute meeting” with O’ Brien in late 2010.
Other screen appearances were stars of the TV series “True Blood” and “Spartacus: Vengeance” as well as the movies “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” (Robert Pattinson, Ashley Greene) and “Prometheus.” Among the games that had a video promotion were the highly anticipated “Gears of War 3” from Epic Games.
