Suicide Squad and More from the Warner Bros. Comic-Con Panel

Hopefully you had a chance to check out our Live Blog of the Warner Bros. Comic-Con panel, as we frantically tried to keep up with everything that was happening and answer all the questions, specifically about the two DC Films movies, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad, both which look even better than our expectations. 

While Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Joe Wright’s Pan both look fantastic, it’s obviously the two upcoming superhero films directed by Zack Snyder and David Ayer, respectively, that got people standing in line since yesterday afternoon to get in. 

It’s hard to put into words how exciting it was being in Hall H for the panel, especially while it was going on, because things were happening at such a lightning-fast paced with so much footage being shown. (As some of you might know, Hall H requires us to turn off all electronics, including laptops, while that’s happening.)

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the highlights:

* As the panel started, curtains were opened to reveal a screen that literally wrapped around Hall H from the back of the hall, along the left wall going to the front and then another screen on the right wall, extending all the way to the back. And all of this screen space was used to show the sizzle reels, footage and concept art during the panel.

* Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. looks like a lot of fun. ComingSoon.net’s Silas Lesnick has already seen it, so Warner Bros. clearly know they have a fun and exciting movie that should be a great counterpoint to Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service released earlier this year. (No surprise, Ritchie and Vaughn are long time buddies and collaborators.)  What makes U.N.C.L.E. different is that it’s a period piece and so it will probably be less technology-based, but Ritchie has done period action movies before (Sherlock Holmes and its sequel) and he has experience creating exciting action without modern-day tech.

* If you’re not already in love with Alicia Vikander (and you should be after Ex Machina) then you will be after this movie. She has some great moments in the footage with Armie Hammer’s KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin, but I was also impressed with Henry Cavill’s American accent as an old school CIA agent.

* Having visited the set of Joe Wright’s Pan, I already knew a lot about the plot and had seen a lot of concept art and other things, but the new trailer really showed off a lot of that had been brought to life that we hadn’t seen yet like the Croc, the Neverbirds and especially Rooney Mara’s Tiger Lillly, who wears spectacular colorful costumes. It looks like it’s going to be a fun movie for kids who may only know the familiar Peter Pan story.

* The extended clip shown focused on Hugh Jackman’s Blackbeard as it showed Peter and the other orphans arriving in Neverland and being created by the pompous pirate walking across a pulpit built on his ship giving them a big speech about what is expected of them. It looks like Jackman is really creating a heightened character similar to Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow that will probably be as memorable as the visuals. I have great confidence in young Levi Miller and Garrett Hedlund as the younger Hook, too. 

But let’s get to what everyone was waiting for, which was Warner Bros.’ DC Comics films, and they began with an amazing sizzle reel showcasing the comic characters going back to their origins, including Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and most surprisingly the Suicide Squad. The fact that Suicide Squad is filming for another month and they had so much to show was quite impressive.

* We’ve already seen pictures of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, but they also had concept art of Ezra Miller as The Flash, Rob Fischer as Cyborg, as well as concept art of the Justice League all together. 

* As mentioned earlier, they announced that the 2020 “Green Lantern” movie will be called Green Lantern Corps. and the artwork with the title included all of your favorite Green Lantern Corps. characters, including John Stewart. (Because of the way the artwork/animation was shown on both sides of Hall H, it was very hard to take it all in and make note of who was all in there. So for instance, I didn’t see Guy Gardner, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.)

 * Suicide Squad looked amazing and the footage showcased all of the individual characters as well as showing the group together fighting. The footage was cut to a cover of the Bee Gees’ “I Started a Joke,” a tip of the hat to the main villain in the movie, The Joker, as played by Jared Leto, who we did see briefly torturing some unknown victim. 

* Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn looks like it’s going to be the character of the year, because she genuinely seems to be insane but in an incredibly fun way.  We saw her prison cell in Belle Reve, which was very Hannibal Lecter-like, a cage in the middle of a huge room where she’s suspended from the ceiling by ribbons. We also saw her interact with a couple of the other characters, including Viola Davis’ Amanda Plummer and Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang.

* We got to see Will Smith both out of costume as Floyd Lawton and in costume, rappelling down a building and leading the other super baddies as they fought against a band of soldiers.

* Might be interesting to note that the scene of Batman on top of the Joker’s cars we’ve seen footage of? Harley Quinn is driving the car and she yells, “I hope you have insurance!”

* The general principle of the Suicide Squad has been retained where they’re all imprisoned in Belle Reve and Amanda Waller gathers them together to save the world with the knowledge that they have a way to control them in case they get out of hand.

* We got to see most of the squad with a focus on the key characters including Killer Croc. I’m honestly not sure if we saw much if any of Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag except for with the rest of the group.

Because it’s so hectic today at Comic-Con, I’m probably forgetting some things, but I’ll go back to my notes later and update accordingly. In the meantime, you can watch the footage from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice right here and when I have a little more time, I’ll post an update with some of the things said by Zack Snyder and the cast.