2012 New York Comic-Con: Pacific Rim Overpowers All Other Things Discussed At Legendary Comic’s Panel

by Merrill Barr:

When everyone walked into the panel for Legendary Comics they expected three things:

1. An overview of what Legendary’s plan was for the future of their still young comic book division.
2. An entertaining show courtesy of moderator Chris “Nerdist” Hardwick.
3. NYCC exclusive announcements.

While all three of these things were delivered on in the first 20-minutes, the entire panel was tossed on its head when director Guillermo del Toro took to the stage.

The discussion immediately jumped to Del Toro’s experience working on Pacific Rim at which point he went into how he was “told” not to bring anything to New York Comic-Con after the San Diego footage was such a hit. But he simply “didn’t give a fuck.”

Footage from Pacific Rim was then played and the brains of every audience member melted to the floor.

Robots, monsters, soldiers, metal detectors, it was a total thing of beauty and simply can’t be described in few words. The best I can offer is, when the trailer drops seek it out in a theater.

After the footage played, the conversation shifted into a comic that was going to be released prior to the film itself. Del Toro explained that he was a fan of trans-media and if he was going to do any of it for Pacific Rim he was going to do it right. Del Toro stated that during the creation of Pacific Rim, a 1,000+ page bible of the world’s history, creature designs, character profiles, and so much more was created. This 1,000+ page bible (parts of which were shown to the audience) was supplied to the writers of the comics.

Del Toro stated that he viewed the film as the end of a grander story that would be fleshed out in the prequel comics. But it was clear that Del Toro was not saying the comic was required viewing in order to appreciate the film itself.

When the panel was opened up for questions the sore spot for many people was brought up, the recently announced 3D post-conversion of the film. Del Toro used the question as an opportunity to fully explain what happened and stated first and foremost that he has final cut on the movie and the post-conversion was 100% his call.

Del Toro said that after San Diego Comic-Con (where he stated he was adamantly against 3D for the film because of a scaling issue that occurs with the effect), he was approached by a post-conversion house that begged him to let them do a test to prove the film would work in 3D. Del Toro agreed to the test (not the conversion itself) under three conditions that had to be met first:

1. Nothing could be scaled down to fit within the screen.
2. If the conversion went through, the budget for standard post-conversion had to be doubled so ILM could produce all their VFX shots in native 3D.
3. The studio had to give a minimum of 40 weeks from the film’s release date for the conversion.

Once his terms were agreed to, a test was done and as Del Toro put it “I did a full Romney.” Del Toro claimed full responsibility for the conversation even if it fails in the end.

I for one was not that excited for Pacific Rim going into this panel. Now? I’d buy my ticket TODAY if I could. Del Toro blew everyone away at the Legendary panel and might have just stolen the weekend along with it.

(And during the panel Del Toro made one of the best references to Honey Boo Boo in the history of ever. Simply stating “Boo Boo whatever the fuck.” I love you Guillermo del Toro)

Stay tuned to DarkMedia for more coverage from the NYCC throughout the weekend.  And be sure to check out the coverage on Opening Day and The Art of Composing For Film & Television.

DarkMedia contributor Merrill Barr can also be found on his podcast, OSNAP, and on Twitter @sonic43.