In all seriousness, Frosty got a bad bump on the head and had to go to the hospital.  He's recuperating but it's not the best way to start the Con.  We here at Collider love getting exclusives but I'm pretty sure this doesn't count.  Also, we don't like being a part of the story.  If the scaffolding has to fall on someone, we prefer it to be someone like Keanu Reeves.  That's not because we dislike Keanu.  It's because the metal would simply bend around his skull like in the cartoons.

After an obvious delay to make sure the rigging on the other walls didn't collapse, we were ready to move past that ugly business with the rigging and to be entertained by Fox's upcoming presentations. 

The Day The Earth Stood Still

The panel for "The Day The Earth Stood Still" consisted of Keanu Reeves (Klaatu), Jennifer Connelly, director Scott Derrickson, and producer Erwin Stoff

Not a very entertaining panel.  Derrickson talks about how he loves the original, blah, blah, blah.  I'd be more entertained if went on stage, took a piss on the original, and said that his version was our new lord and master.  You may not agree, but you'll be talking about that panel. It wasn't until the footage was shown that I started getting excited for this film.  Say what you will about Keanu Reeves, but the guy knows how to do detachment.  It's contingent on the director on how to use that detachment.  Derrickson knows how to make it creepy.

The first scene was in the interrogation room.  Klaatu manipulates technology to disable the guards and get the information he needs to escape.  This would also seem to fit well with the environmental/nature over mankind/technology theme from the trailer.

After the clip, Keanu and Jennifer Connelly talked a little bit about their characters.  Then, we get another clip Connelly's step-son, played by Jayden Smith, confessing to Keanu that earlier he wanted him dead.  This has nothing to do with him being an alien.  It was for "The Matrix Revolutions".  It was surprisingly meta (okay, it WAS about him being an alien, but I bet Jayden Smith was thinking about "The Matrix Revolutions" when he was doing that scene).

Not much more after that except a full trailer which really turned me around on the film.  I'm now actively looking forward to it and while I know it's like Con attendees pay a premium for this footage, 20^th Century Fox would do well to put this new trailer online.  The film comes out the same weekend as "Twilight" (more on that HERE-link to Summit Pictures article) and unless they want to go with my fake-PSA ads where Gort explains that anyone who like vampires is gay, then they need to start kicking this marketing machine into gear.

Max Payne

The presentation kicked off with a clip from the film.  Max goes to investigate an apartment and gets a brutal beatdown before unleashing hot lead from his ankle holster.  It's a neat scene.

Then the panel comes on stage: Mark Wahlberg (Max Payne), Mila Kunis (Mona Sax), Chris Bridges (Jim Bravura), and director John Moore.

It sounds like Moore at least understands one of the reasons why videogame films fail: they take away control from the player and so Moore wants you to feel like you are Max Payne by abusing the camera.  If the rest of the film is as effective as the apartment scene, he's on the road to success.

Wahlberg gets to have a lot of fun up there and is amused at the amount of cheering.

"It feels like I'm a rock star in Japan.  I don't say anything and the people just cheer.  Now I know why the New Kids wanted to go back!  It makes you all warm in the pants." 

Then we got a scene showing why muggers would do well not to mess with Mr. Payne.  Also, we saw Max's deep hatred of bathroom stall doors.

After the clip, Kunis talked about learning to clean and put together guns and fighting in five-inch heels.  If she does both at the same time, that makes her a triple threat.  Where's the other threat?  I don't know.  That's what makes it so threatening.

Then Wahlberg lays down some Russian language for some reason.  I guess it drives the girls wild (and a couple of the guys too).  Then he praises Bridges' performance.  Brdiges then talks about his character.  Wahlberg mentions that it was originally written for a sixty-year-old white guy.  Chris Bridges then becomes Lloyd Bridges.  It was shocking on many levels.

John Moore talks about the "phantom camera".  It shoots up to a 1000-frames per second as a way of re-creating the bullet-time but not imitate John Woo/Wachowskis.  It removes the wires.  My theory is that Mark Wahlberg is secretly afraid of harnesses.

To wrap it up, we got an exclusive trailer to better showcase the film.

Played to Led Zeppelin's "A Whole Lotta Love".  Big shoot-out between Payne and SWAT team.  I wasn't particularly impressed but I've never played the "Max Payne" games so maybe fans got a bigger kick out of it.

The panel gets up to leave.  People start to get up to leave.  Then, we hear of a visitor who just came in on Quantas.

Hugh Jackman comes out.  The crowd loses their shit.  I didn't know so many people were excited for Baz Luhrman's "Australia".

He announces that they've finished filming "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and he thanks the audience and then runs out into the audience to thank Len Wein for creating Wolverine and "giving him a career". The two words he uses to describe it are "bad ass", which is good because I was worried the two words to describe it would be "tea party".

Lights down, trailer up…

Wolvie and Sabretooth are "executed".  Yeah, guns go off, bullets go into the skin, but that mutant healing factor is useful.  We then get some quick glances of other mutants in the film.  We see Gambit and once again, the crowd loses their shit.  As a fan of Gambit (yeah, yeah, I know) I liked what I saw.  Being a fan of "Friday Night Lights" and seeing Taylor Kitsch fill the role so well was an added bonus.  We also Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), The Blob (Kevin Durand), and a few others I couldn't name.  The trailer focused a lot on the conflict between Sabretooth and Wolverine, which is the right direction in my book.

Again, Jackman thanks the crowd. I want to thank him back by tellinh him to avoid the curtains if at all possible.