Twilight Debuts New Clip to Unreal Fandom at Comic-Con 2008
With all the strength of a vampire’s bite that could compel hundreds of fans to line up for a movie panel up to sixteen hours before it actually began, a new clip from the film based on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling book Twilight stole Thursday’s show in Hall H at Comic-Con 2008. With the 6,500 seat auditorium filled to capacity, Twilight fans were treated to a brand new clip from the upcoming film.
The clip that was shown today started making the film start to look like what I’ve been calling it all along – the surprise box office hit of the Christmas season (maybe not in terms of overall box office, but in terms of profitability). The clip featured Edward (Robert Pattinson) in a fight with James (Cam Gigandet, better known as Volchok from The OC) in a pretty epic brawl with Bella in the middle (Kristen Stewart) that was much more intense than anything previously shown in previews and clips. Bella was thrashed about, as was James and Edward now that I think about it, and the film showed through this clip that it will have some balls beneath the love story that has made the series one of the most popular being talked about today.
Twilight fans have long been aware of the big-screen adaptation of the ever-popular books, but the series of vampire-human romance novels based on a story between a girl named Bella and vampire named Edward seems to fly under the radar a little bit compared to “so three years ago” Harry Potter (which is a fantastic series, but it’s not nearly as “fetch” as it once was). So if you’ve missed the boat, consider this your “heads up” before the bandwagon runs out of space.
However, nothing about the enthusiasm in Hall H would make you think that Twilight was going to have any less impact on pop culture than the glasses-wearing wizard Potter. Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) braved the audience’s full-throttled enthusiasm with smiles on their faces, along with author Stephenie Meyer, director Catherine Hardwicke, and actors Cam Gigandet, Taylor Lautner
, Edi Gathegi, and Jacob Black.
With what could end up being the longest Q&A session (moderated by IGN’s Eric Moro) of Comic-Con 2008, Cam Gigandet took the comic relief lead of the huge panel and helped out as the group tackled questions like “What is it like to play a super hot vampire?”
An awkward moment came when a Twilight mom asked if the fairly young actors Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner wore “boxers, briefs, or nothing,” following up the question with “Kristen [Stewart], do you know?? Just a joke…” which was met with a quick, cold look from Bella herself. But overall, every single answer (even the fact that a visibly nervous Robert Pattinson may have not completed a full sentence during the panel) was met with unreal applause from the crowd, along with exclamations like “Rob, I love you!!!” “Evil has never looked so good!!!” and many, many more.
To say the fans in attendance today love Twilight would be an understatement of the greatest kind. Will Twilight pull Harry Potter money?
No, it won’t. But to dismiss Twilight as “just another teen movie” would be a huge miss on what I believe will be one of this Christmas season’s biggest sleeper hits.
