Aw heck, here we go. San Diego Comic-Con begins in just a few days, where every major studio will be flaunting their biggest upcoming projects, whether they be TV, movies, video games, comics...anything you can think of under the sun. I've covered it from afar the last few years, and it's such a flurry of activity that there's barely a moment to rest. I'll be there in person this year, and while my intent isn't simply to work, there's going to be so much hype for so many big flicks that it'll be unavoidable. And hey look, it's starting early with the release of two new Comic-Con posters, one for The Hobbit, the other for Pacific Rim.
Peter Jackson will be bringing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to Comic-Con, and now that filming has been completed in New Zealand, we'll hopefully get a ton of new footage that isn't just a bunch of hobbits singing. The poster is a good, if overly familiar start, showing Gandalf(Ian McKellen) walking along a grassy path in the Shire. Just like in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, walking is going to be about 80% of what the story will be made up of, so this poster is at least an accurate representation. Nope, I'm still not all that excited for The Hobbit. Not yet. Hopefully Comic-Con will change that. [Facebook]
And next up is Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, which he wouldn't even be doing if all things had panned out as they were meant to. If you'll recall, Del Toro was supposed to be directing The Hobbit, but due to MGM's financial woes and a ton of delays, the director moved on to the big budget, special effects behemoth about humans in mechs fighting giant monsters. The poster appears to be a close-up of a "Jaeger", which are the mechanized robots the humans will be piloting in their war for survival. Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Idris Elba, Charlie Day, Clifton Collins Jr., and more will lead the film.
I stick by my guns that Pacific Rim looks like the more interesting project, mainly because it's a totally original piece of work from a filmmaker who is always looking for a fresh perspective. That doesn't mean The Hobbit will be terrible. Peter Jackson knows the world of J.R.R. Tolkien like few others, but it's that familiarity that has me thinking he won't do anything new.
The Hobbit strolls into theaters on December 14th, while Pacific Rim opens next year on July 12th.
