Hugh Jackman, Corey Feldman and Paris Hilton in San Diego
San Diego during Comic-Con is completely unlike any other city. For example, it's difficult to think of anywhere else where a guy walking down the street dressed as Captain Picard, accompanied by a girl dressed as Uhura, would attract triumphant shouts of "Trekkies!" from a passing cycle taxi. For these five days in July, this perennially sunny corner of California really is a shrine to all things geek - and it's fantastic.
After Wednesday's busier-than-ever preview night, the serious business of the Con got going. As ever, the biggest news emerged from Hall H, the aircraft hangar-sized room that plays host to the big Hollywood studios' presentations. Thursday's headlines belonged to Fox, who showed off new scenes from the Keanu-starring Day the Earth Stood Still remake, and gave fans a surprise in the shape of one "just off the plane" Hugh Jackman. THe Aussie star's unexpected appearance - arriving on stage with a fan-teasing "this guy is way too tall to play Wolverine" - accompanied a screening of the first footage from next May's Wolverine movie. Hopefully that means a trailer won't be too far behind.
Away from Hall H, today was a particularly big day for SFX's man on the ground, who managed to get some one-on-one time with Grant Morrison (talking about his Virgin Comics animation MBX – "It's a way of spreading into other media and dealing with the fact that the whole world is now open to the sort of material that only we used to like, science fiction and fantasy and that" - and '80s icon Corey Feldman, to talk about bringing back Edgar Frog for the upcoming Lost Boys sequel. "The sequel's something they've been talking about for 20 years plus," he said."I guess they just decided now was the time. There were certain things that I wanted for sure in the script before I was willing to come on board. ONe of those things was Corey Haim being a part of it, and also that my character had more significance and wasn't just there for the nostalgia factor." (You can read more from half of the two Coreys - along with all of the rest of the hottest news from the Con - in the October issue of SFX, on sale 27 August).
Just when we thought the celeb-spotting couldn't get any more surreal, we came face-to-face with some heiress to a hotel chain who goes by the name of Paris Hilton. She was in town to promote Repo!: The Genetic Opera, a film she described as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show meets Blade Runner". From what we saw of the heavy metal opera (directed by multiple Saw-smith Darren Bousman) that might be an understatement - the mix of hard rock, Anthony Head giving good libretto and Hilton in a Goth fright wig made sure Repo! is likely to go down as the weirdest offering at this year's Con. It's certainly a tricky one to sum up in a couple of lines.
Friday's all set to go Watchmen crazy, as the Alan Moore graphic novel adaptation gets its chance to rule Hall H. We'd best start queuing now...
