COMIC-CON DEBRIEFING

So it was a crazy day.  Which made it a fairly typical day at Com-Con.

I hit SD about 10:30 in the morning.  Got an hour or so to walk the auditorium floor, and was heartened to see the comic book stands…the concept artists working away at their stalls…the smaller vendors hawking their fantasy figurines.  I was last at Com-Con 13 years ago, and I was glad to see that it hadn’t been completely co-opted by the studios and networks.

Then it was time to get down to business.  “H” Hall business.

Vin, Katee, and I strode into the hall before 6,500 pairs of eager eyes.  Last time here, I showed clips from a small movie called PITCH BLACK, and today I was showing scenes from RIDDICK, third in the same series.  It played about as well as I could’ve imagined.  I’ve actually seen the movie with precious few people because I chose not to test the movie, chose not to focus-group it to death.  Hey, I figure I know our audience by now.  They were right here in “H” hall, eating up the new RIDDICK red-band trailer.

“H” Hall done, the three of us broke up for our individual interviews.  It’s a blur now, but I do recall spending time in the Entertainment Weekly suite and with Drew McWeeney of Hitflix and with the IGN folks among many, many others.  I probably did a solid seven hours of interviews and poster-signing.  There comes a point when you start to tire of your own answers – the same answers which seemed fresh and inspired just hours before.  Charlie Sheen once told me that, on particularly long press junkets, he just started making shit up to keep himself amused.

Well, Charlie can do that.  But I hew closer to reality than Charlie does.  (No huge badge of honor, that.)

Anyway, great day and mission accomplished.  RIDDICK comes out September 6 in the U.S. and Canada.  Try to see it in a digital IMAX theater – that’ll be the best presentation.