Giant Freakin Robot

Let’s for once skip the part where we say that found footage is saturating the market and just skip to where I say, “but this looks pretty cool anyway.” The compilation-style found footage horror flick V/H/S has been given a new trailer and it’s pretty effing cool. Sure, we don’t know how the shorter stories within the film tie into the main storyline, but all of the imagery in the new trailer is terrifying and brutal. Check it out below, but beware, it’s red band so it’s gory and there’s a boob that flashes by.

The live action version of Akira is all but shut down due to budgetary concerns at Warner Bros., but a lot of work has already been done on the film so why not share that with the world if the film will never see the light of day, right? Concept artist Sylvain Despretz had been working on art and storyboards for what supposedly was not a great script, and io9 got their hands on a few pages of the work. Scope them out below.

Looper – due out later this year – is a science fiction film based around the idea that time-travel has been invented in the near future, but is only really used for nefarious purposes. Gordon-Levitt’s character is a “looper” – an assassin hired by criminals in the future who send their marks back in time to our present for elimination. Gordon-Levitt’s character is thrown for a loop, though, when he discovers his newest mark is actually his future self (played by Bruce Willis). Yesterday at Wondercon, director Brian Johnson and star Justin Gordon-Levitt introduced the first footage from the film and talked about it a bit with the fans.

It’s always a bit strange when people come to conventions to promote films that aren’t sequels and about which people know very little, but Johnson and Gordon-Levitt were happy to explain the premise and goals of Looper for the unitiated crowd. As Johnson described it, Looper is “at its heart” about what you would do if you found yourself sitting across from your past or future self. It gets into “all sorts of moral stuff. If moral exploration is [your thing], we’ve got your number.”

The Resident Evil: Retribution panel began with a new teaser trailer. While intensely short, it is also intensely amusing. It begins as a fake commercial for a technology company, with a cheerful international cohort of folks touting how their mobile devices will bring them into the future. With a beautiful little verbal transition, we find ourselves in the chaotic infected world of the Resident Evil franchise. It’s fun but action-packed – a perfect way to begin their WonderCon presentation.

Both director Paul Anderson and star Milla Jovovich were on hand to talk about the latest installment in the long-running film and video game franchise – the first female-led action franchise to reach five films. Jovovich chalked this up to the fans, who proved that the movies based on video games can be good, successful films and that a female lead can carry them successfully.