Part Two of the Comic-Con Legendary panel in Hall H features Krampus and Warcraft! Click the jump for photos and recaps from both!
For anybody not familiar with this creepy little Christmas tidbit, director Michael Dougherty explained: “Krampus is a character from European folklore. Essentially he’s the dark Santa Claus; instead of brining presents for good little children he comes down your chimney, throws you into a bag and beats you with a stick. So, very German.”
Christmas is already creepy, you have the idea of this supernatural entity that sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake and as a child that idea gave me anxiety, so between that and getting placed on a stranger’s lap and abandoned by my mother, it just sort of made an impression.
When explaining why he chose to make this movie, he said “I’ve always wanted to make a scary Christmas movie because there aren’t very many of them, and they typically just involve a guy in a Santa suit with an ax. My co-writers and I, Zach and Todd, we wanted to make a scary Christmas movie that actually said ‘what if all those Christmas wishes you made as a child turned dark because you gave up on your belief in Christmas?'”
Cast members Toni Collette and Adam Scott took the stage, and Toni explained the reason why she loved the script was “It so wonderfully blended a lot of different genres. It looks like a very scary movie, and believe me it’s horrifying, but it is very funny. For the first half an hour it feels like a couple of dysfunctional families in a John Hughes comedy, and you have no idea that the horror is about to descend. It’s just a wonderful combo of unexpected, intense stuff. Emotional, funny, more than I thought it would be.”
Adam agreed, saying “I was just so impressed by yes how scary it was but how character-driven it was and how funny it was, and that’s what Mike was going for. And then I read the script, and I was just impressed by how much he’s kinda carrying the torch of those character-driven horror films of the 80s that everyone could enjoy.”
Michael talked about the effects in the film, which are practical, but not completely so. “We have a lot of practical effects but we do have digital effects because I do believe in a hybrid approach. But with our creatures I wanted to build puppets so I could attack our very talented actors. But erase out the rods, erase out the wires, but when you actually see a teddy bear spring to life and attack them I wanted it to feel tactile and real, give them something to react to.”
Plus the slime looks so much better when it’s real.
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After that it was Warcraft‘s turn, with Director Duncan Jones explaining one of the biggest challenges in making this eagerly-anticipated (among gamers) film: “We wanted to make a film which everyone would be interested in beyond just the Warcraft gaming audience. I think it was a similar challenge that Peter Jackson had when he did the first Lord of the Rings movies: how do you appeal to an audience that hasn’t read Tolkien? He managed to make that work, we’re hoping we can do the same.”
The cast spoke in turn about what they enjoyed about working on the film.
Travis Fimmel: “Duncan put us in the amazing world of magical characters. It was such a great experience, and a new one for me, I’ve never done motion capture before. It’s amazing to see that this is what I was actually looking at.”
Chris: “Have you not seen anything from it yet?”
Travis: “I saw broomsticks with foam on the end.”
Paula Patton spoke on her character Garona: “She’s half human, half orc…She never really fits in in either world, she sort of has one foot in each, and you know when you’re an actress you might want to find research but you don’t know how to research how to play an orc, you have to figure it out. I was scared to death, it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever undertaken but I’m so glad I did it, I loved it.”
Ben Foster had lots of praise for the director: “Getting to work with Duncan who, have you seen his film Moon? This is a man with a very specific vision, and he brought that vision to a beloved game, and elevated that game to a film. Getting the opportunity to play with this cast and this crew with this material from Blizzard and Legendary, it’s a once in a lifetime.”
Dominic Cooper wasn’t as impressed with the wardrobe. Mostly. “We had to wear sweaty wigs and very heavy armor. I couldn’t even lift up my sword, I was pathetic. I’ve never seen such a big sword.”
Rob Kazinsky talked about his time racking up 600 paid days of playing Warcraft: “There was a time when I wasn’t in a Warcraft movie, and in that time I was unemployed for a lot of that time and I spent it eating cake and playing Warcraft….I lost a relationship, a really good one too, I lost self esteem, but it would all be really really sad and pathetic if I wasn’t doing this movie, which has totally made it okay!”
Rob also added reassurance to every gamer who’s dreamed of this movie:
I’m a gamer and I know what I’m expecting is what you’re expecting from this thing, and I promise you: Duncan Jones has made the movie that we wanted to see.
Ben Schnitzer spoke on why he enjoyed the story: “It’s not a cut and dry, good vs. evil story, this is a story about two heroes on a collision course, it made it unique in the arc, and that was really attractive to me. It’s just a total trip, amazing, a great experience.”
Clancy Brown talked for a while as an orc, very convincingly.
Ruth Negga on her character Lady Taria: “Behind every great man there’s a greater woman. She’s a very dignified lady who loves her land and there’s a certain steeliness to her. She’s knows what she’s doing. It was such a pleasure to work on this film, to work with Duncan, with this misfit cast. I just can’t wait to see it.”
Daniel Wu then spoke on exactly why he’s in this movie. “I have to thank my wife because she plays the game, she played for many many years, and she’s actually the reason why I did the film. Of course I did it for Duncan and this amazing cast and all that but really it’s to get in my wife’s good graces…when I got the audition for this I actually was meant to take a year off because my wife just had a baby, we were going to spend time with the baby, and I found out about this audition. I told her “Honey, you know I promised I’d take a year off but there’s an audition coming up.” And she goes “But you promised me you wouldn’t work.” “But it’s Warcraft.” And goes “You have to fucking do it.””
Photos generously provided by Melanie McCann and Hillary Papirio.