The much-anticipated Warner Bros. Panel kicked off Hall H on Saturday and it did not dissappoint. While I wouldn't say it brought down the house completely, it definitely secured a foothold for the studio in terms of presentation and hype. Host Aisha Tyler was on hand to intro the films being pimped. WB brought along two of their upcoming features to start things off; Guy Ritchie's THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. and Joe Wright's PAN, which was excpected, before they brought the thunder with David Ayer's SUICIDE SQUAD and Zack Snyder's BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. Here's the lowdown on each:
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Before seeing the new trailer for the film, we saw a video message from Guy Ritchie from the set of his latest flick, KING ARTHUR, complete with Charlie Hunnam in the distance shooting some sword-fighting scenes. Afterwards, we were treated to the new trailer (see below), which is a cleverly-edited and stylistic affair or, for Ritchie, exactly what we expect. Stars Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, and Elizabeth Debecki were on hand to talk about the film, with all of them gushing with pride to be a part of a Guy Ritchie flick.
– Armie Hammer commented on the fight sequences in the film, saying that they were very organic and not planned out. When you see two guys fighting, they're basically fighting as they would, not in a highly choreographed set up.
– Henry Cavill commented on his character of Napoleon, saying that he is a “mischievious rogue” that you "love to hate or hate to love."
PAN
Joe Wright, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, and Hugh Jackman took the stage for PAN, briefly discusing the film and highlighting that even though there are a lot of effects, everything we see was a set and not all green screen.
Levi Miller on the sets: “It was like walking into a theme park.”
Jackman: They had fully built pirate ships. “The whole thing was a complete joy”
They showed a clip of Blackbeard giving a speech to the new orphans being brought to the mining area. Jackman is great, clearly having fun. Will make a great crazy/scary pirate. Could very well be the best thing about the film.
They showed a new trailer for the film as well, which surprisingly looks heavy on the CGI despite the insistence and emphasis on how much practical work is done. It's not a knock out of the park trailer, but still looks interesting enough.
DCCU INTRO
Before they launched into the individual films, they showed an avalanche of motion concept art for the upcoming DC Comics Movie slate and it looks massive. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and…GREEN LANTERN CORPS, were all show onscreen with official-looking logos. So, we now know that we'll get the full on Green Lantern Corps rather than another solo film (a smart move) and there were even some flashes of Shazam and Black Adam in there (again, all in concept art format). The titles of each film were revealed along with JUSTICE LEAGUE parts 1 & 2 (which will likely have some tag at the end at some point). All in all, it was a dizzying amount of awesome information to take in, but a hell of an intro to the burgeoning world of the DCCU.
SUICIDE SQUAD
We were treated to more concept art for SUICIDE SQUAD which teased a lot of the sequences we've seen being filmed in set photos already. Still cool, but nothing too new. Afterwards, David Ayer took the stage, saying that we (the fans) "run this shit" before rolling a full-on teaser for SUICIDE SQUAD.
Teaser opens with Viola Davis as Amanda Waller having dinner with some military guys in a high class restaurant, discussing the use of criminals as soldiers. Davis comes off as a perfect hard ass, at one point saying she’s captured the worst “I put him in the hole and threw away the hole.”
We see Harley Quinn dangling inside a rectangular cage (suspended off the ground) with her sheets tied around the cage and her dangling upside down, almost like a spider. She's definitely got the crazy down pat, emulating all the attitude and lunacy of Harley Quinn.
We see Killer Croc in a Hannibal like mask and rolling gurnee.
Will Smith's Deadshot punching a bag in his cell
Lots of shots of Suicide Squad walking the streets with fire and debris around them. Tons of the set pic imagery we've seen in the past few months.
We see Deadshot in full gear (white helmet) fast-roping down a building, armed up to fight.
We hear Joker’s laugh then see him torturing someone. "I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to hurt you reeeeal bad." (something to that effect) Leto is rocking the tattoos and mouth grill, so those aspects are in check for the scenes we saw. He looks creepy as hell and has got the voice in place. A great tease.
Lots of shooting with everyone wearing big costume masks, one of them even looking like the old-school Batman.
Overall, SUICIDE SQUAD looks dark, moody, and violent. Tons of fun and certainly not a run of the mill superhero flick. A great universe builder.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
The last thing on the agenda was BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, with director Zack Snyder taking the stage along with Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jesse Eisenberg, and Jeremy Irons. Before a word was spoken, the new trailer was shown (see it below!), which left the room buzzing with excitement. Afterwards, the conversation turned to the usual back-and-forth, with the most notable quotes coming from Affleck, who talked about his apprehension in filling a role that had already been inhabited by so many other great actors.
Snyder convinced Affleck to do it, however, telling him that it was a very different take on the character; "He's at the end of his rope. He's older, kind of washed up."
Affleck told a story about how he happened to meet the last Batman, Christian Bale, at a kids costume shop. Affleck was apprehensive and told Bale how great he was as Batman and decided to ask if he had any advice on playing the character, to which Bale replied, "Make sure you can piss in that suit."
After the short discussion they gave us an encore of the trailer and closed up shop for the day.
While it would've been nice to hear them discuss more about Affleck taking on a solo Bat-film or even talk about the WONDER WOMAN solo flick, etc., the teaser of things to come was more than enough to get the hype machine fired up. At this point, if you're not feeling BATMAN V SUPERMAN, then you probably never will and while there's still much to be proven in their ambitious future line-up, based on what was shown today it appears that they know what they're doing…and it looks amazing.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE hits theaters on March 25, 2016. SUICIDE SQUAD follows afterward on August 5, 2016.