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Deadline Comic-Con film correspondent Luke Y Thompson files:
At the COWBOYS AND ALIENS premiere on Saturday night. Adam Beach won himself a fan for life when he showed up without a plus-one and gave away his extra ticket to a fan who had been sitting in the bleachers since 1 PM. Inside a refitted opera theater, director Jon Favreau came out to a standing ovation, brought all the cast and producers onstage, and made them take a bow to the folks who pay for the tickets. He compared the movie to that one last present you open on Christmas day that’s still a bit of a mystery, and let the fans know they could be honest with their feedback.
This was an important event: all the Universal bigwigs were there, including Adam Fogelson and Ron Meyer. Once the movie started, the fans were vocal when they wanted to be. Mainly any time an act of violence happened. Daniel Craig punching a guy till blood flies, for example, or an alien throwing Olivia Wilde into the air. Craig’s cool wrist-laser device was also well-liked. But the movie is most effective when Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig are onscreen together. Craig plays a good guy with a bad past, while Ford is kind of a bad guy (mostly because he lets his twitchy, psycho son played by Paul Dano do whatever he likes) who actually has a heart. They meet in the middle, metaphorically; but any scene of them staring each other down or hitting each other’s faces was well-received. As was almost any moment of Ford yelling, which he does a lot (and his Southern accent disappears when that happens). Nonetheless, this is Ford’s best work in a long time.
Fans were also quiet for long stretches, though. Unfortunately, this isn’t a Ford-Craig mismatched buddy movie – Craig ends up teaming mostly with Olivia Wilde (whose character arc is ludicrous, but to say more would be spoiling), while Ford hangs out with way too many supporting characters nobody cared about, despite the sentimental score’s attempt to make you feel something.
Massive cheers at the end, though. Whatever the faults, the highlights seem to outweigh any misgivings in the fans’ minds.
And while Favreau talked a good game about fans and filmmakers interacting, the talent departed quickly afterward, while fans enjoyed hot dogs, quesadillas, free beer and wine under a giant alien drone replica. (Andy Serkis, who isn’t in the movie, did hang out for a while).
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Olivia Wilde will be a movie star. Anybody who says otherwise is a conspiracy theorist!!!
The Katherine Ross of her generation.
So is it official yet, that he’s no longer directing movies?
I know this story has a built-in fanbase, but the trailers to date still don’t indicate enough about this story to convey to non-fan’s that this is a compelling movie. The trailers just make it look like an alien-western mash-up with no insight into the characters. It’s time for phase 2 of the marketing plan, guys.
Not actually that much of a built-in audience… never a massive-selling book, its initial sales were mostly a result of overshipping on the part of the publisher (sending not-ordered copies to stores with a 90-day window before they could return them, while booking those shipped copies as sales and simultaneously pretending they wouldn’t mostly be returned). Once they hit the “#1 Comic In the Nation” point that they were after, that laid the bait for Hollywood, who wouldn’t know a good comic from a bad one.
Glad you got to comment on this one – was hoping it would be good
Favs is an A-list director. He had to catch a plane with Ron Meyer. Screw the fans. It sounds like this movie has serious problems and pacibg issues that are magnified when Ford is onscreen. This movie’s failure will be identifiably the tiping point for the comic book movie genre, and possibly the current Uni and Dreamworks regimes. Heads have to roll if this fails.
But if this succeeds – and I believe it will – we will be subjected to endless inferior-quality mashups: Pirates vs. Ninjas, Godzilla vs. Pilgrims, Spartans vs. Zombies. Kill me now.
>Godzilla vs. Pilgrims
Yes, yes, yes, you’re a genius!
“The Dinosaurs of Roanoke” — I’m willing to do the script, I’m wanting to do the script, I’m waiting to do the script…
listen to your native woodnotes wild! Must be the Welsh in you:)
“Dinosaurs of Roanoke” – genius.
Pitch meeting:
How did the dinosaurs disappear?
No, how did the Roanoke Colony disappear?
No – the dinosaurs!
No – the Roanoke Colony!
WAIT – what if… what if… THEY”RE THE SAME THING?!?!?
INterested Observer:
I don’t know how you got those observations from that article. I have friends that were in the audience for the premier… and they said quite the opposite. They laughed, they cried, they jumped, and in the short review of one of them “it was amazing.”
I have friends at ILM that have seen long clips and have used the same word.
This is not a comic book movie. This is a graphic novel move, and not a very good graphic novel at that.
I’d bet that this rises WELL above it’s roots and will do quite well.
Consider the mindset of a comic-book fan older than 12. OF COURSE they would say “it was amazing”. They still think comic books are amazing.
Chances are you have seen and enjoyed a comicbook-based movie in the past 10 years, thinking ‘it was amazing’. Don’t be an arrogant idiot.
It really isn’t a comic book movie though, Iluvnerds is right. It was a one-shot graphic novel that had little to no effort put into its production but was brilliantly marketed to exploit the comic book movie rush and get the movie optioned picked up. Most comic book stores gave it away for free or less than a dollar because the creators wanted to inflate the sales number to get Hollywood’s interest.And while it sounds goofy, it actually worked for them.
Plus the book is so bad that they had to practically rewrite it from the ground up in order to attract any real talent to it, so it wont hurt the comic book movie craze at all.
I saw the premiere on Saturday, and even though I do not read comics and was expecting the film to be stupid, I absolutely loved it. It WAS amazing. It’s not without it’s flaws (mainly I felt a lot of side character’s arcs were heavy-handed and obvious, and Olivia Wilde’s character felt shoe-horned in), but overall it’s the best film I’ve seen all year. Tense, stylish, funny, ludicrous at times, but overall incredibly satisfying and enjoyable. You may end up not liking it, sure, but don’t write it off as just something only die hard fans of the graphic novel could possibly appreciate.
The worst part about this movie is that I have to wait another week to see it again, and that I don’t have anyone to geek out with yet over it.
The film is tedious except for about three moments that were stolen from Aliens. Otherwise poor dialogue, no character development, and unimpressive special effects. It’s a big yawn.
Surprisingly, both Variety and the Reporter have given this rave reviews. If the critical consensus continues to be positive, I can see this film quickly moving from possible bomb to huge hit.
Ever film I have seen in the last 3 months where the CvA trailer is played has had one common element: The audience doesn’t seem to care. Mostly guffaws and snickers. But I do remember when the trailer first played, and folks reactions was mostly opposite of what it is now. Me thinks that the audience has reached its saturation point with CvA, and that will be seen in the receipts of opening weekend.
Grandpa and Great Grandpa have an adventure. This thing skews so old I cant believe the fanboys are gonna go. Maybe Olivia Wilde will get them out of their basements but the trailers so far make me doubt it.
You sound like you’re about 8 years old.
And isn’t Olivia Wilde too old anyway?
Attended the premiere and the film is a strong, fun, summer, popcorn ride.
Looking past the over-hyped, over-stimulated Comic Con audience that Favreau plays to so well, the cowboy/western half of the film is solid, the aliens stuff feels very similar in some respects to the treatment of material in Independence Day 4 and Men In Black.
Any gravitas or depth needed in this kind of movie are masterfully brought to bear by Ford and Craig in their roles and that makes them are easily as compelling as all the effects/creatures.
It’s somewhere in here where the Cowboys part meets the Aliens part that Favreau found an alchemy that works, and with this story premise I’d challenge that any filmmaker/creative would be hard-pressed to conceive of a way to actually make it work better.
Dear Unforgiven meets MIB,
Well written, but it did not directly answer the question…”Did you like it…a lot?
If it’s a hit then it has interesting sequel possibliites. The heirs of Harrison Ford-Olivia Wilde-Daniel Craig fight the returning aliens in the future-history. World War 1, World War 2, be the cause of the spanish flu. Maybe i shouldn’t be giving out these crazy ideas. Somone might actually they’re good.
Um, Harrison Ford’s character’s last name is “Dolarhyde.”
As in “Frances Dolarhyde” of RED DRAGON.
Can’t wait to see people make THAT connection.
“Skews old.” what a load of garbage. Good stories, good actors – that’s all we need. Harrsion Ford in a good role is far more enjoyable than some pretty-boy teenager flexing his abs.
I don’t know if this movie will be any good – I find it heard to believe that it won’t given the level of talent involved – but I do know this, echoing what several have said: the marketing for the movie is terrible.
I’m not familiar with the graphic novel, and the commercials and trailers don’t get beyond the generic mash-up that is the title; I have no idea what happens in this movie beyond aliens attacking cowboys.
Furthermore, has anyone noticed in the commercials, the title is never mentioned? The voiceover at the end doesn’t, as they almost always do, say the title. It would be an odd choice, except that…
…As someone pointed out, when those original teaser trailers premiered, audiences laughed, at the trailers and especially at the title. It was widely reported at the time. So apparently the marketers got the message that the very thing that launched this entire enterprise, that high-concept title, is also its biggest liability.
I wonder if the executives at Sony have any regrets that they wouldn’t green light this project?
Those nice guys at Escape Artists worked for several years with many writers to get this project off the ground and Sony just wouldn’t step up to the plate. Too bad for them if this is a big financial hit. I wonder what Grazer saw that Sony didn’t see.
Cowboys and aliens what more do you need?
By the way I am preordering tix for Godzilla vs pilgrims
Olivia Wilde is amazing and smart. Worked at Fox while she was on House. Couldn’t have been nicer or more approachable. Always smiling, usually hanging out with Kal Pen, who was equally nice.
I was there last night, the film is terrific and totally unexpected. It’s the freshest blockbuster out there. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde are terrific. Favreau is the hottest director of this generation. Kudos to him, and nice for him to bring this premiere to Comicon and his loyal fans.
Re: me vs. Pilgrims
HILARIOUS comment! and it beautifully demonstrates how shtoooooopid the entire mashup concept is.
Thank you for the best chortle I’ve had in a long time! (almost set my iPad on fire!)
It’s funny how naysayers will carp about how “immature” comic book movies are, then turn right around and watch some Seth Rogen/Adam Sandler frat-boy POS
I also attended the premiere and really enjoyed it. It delivers exactly what it promises: cowboys and aliens. Craig and Ford give the movie some weight and class, as do Sam Rockwell and Paul Dano, (who were a little underused), and the action is big and fun.