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Harrison Ford Takes the Stage for the Cowboys & Aliens Panel at Comic-Con 2010

Jul 27, 2010 By Mark Redfern Photography by Wendy Lynch Redfern Comic-Con 2010

The biggest surprise at the Cowboys & Aliens panel was that they showed the audience three scenes from the sci-fi western, even though, as director Jon Favreau put it, they had “only been shooting for about a month” and it’s not due out for a year. The second biggest surprise was that co-star Harrison Ford was led out onto the stage by security in handcuffs, in reference to the stabbing incident that had happened in that very room only around an hour earlier. Perhaps the joke was in bad taste, but the crowd still gave the legendary star a standing ovation and it elicited plenty of laughter.

The panel also included actors Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, and Adam Beach; as well as writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Because the room was running late due to the aforementioned incident in which one attendee stabbed another one with a pen near his eye and was led off in handcuffs, as well as the lack of a moderator, many on the panel didn’t have a chance to say anything, with us only hearing from Favreau, Ford, and Craig.

Favreau did most of the talking. He announced that the movie won’t be in 3-D. He had considered shooting it that way, but wanted to shoot it on film to match the classic westerns, and in order to purposefully shoot a film in 3-D it would need to be shot digitally. The other option would be to shoot it with film cameras and then convert it to 3-D, but Favreau said that he didn’t think that 3-D looked good that way. “Take the money you save [from buying 3-D tickets] and see it twice,” joked Favreau. The director said that his intention with Cowboys & Aliens was to “make a by-the-book western, straight down the middle…and mix it with the kind of sci-fi movies I grew up watching.”

Favreau thanked the Comic-Con audience for helping make his two Iron Man movies such a success, adding that he wanted to make sure that they had a Cowboys & Aliens panel this year and that they worked hard to have scenes ready to show, even though they had only been shooting for four weeks and the movie isn’t due out until June 29, 2011. In the first scene they screened, Daniel Craig’s character is walking in an old west town . He enters a bathroom and starts to clean a wound before a gun is put to his head. In the next scene, he is locked up by the town sheriff (Clancy Brown) in a jail cell next to Paul Dano. But it is the third scene that made the most impact. Craig, who has been arrested for murder, is to be transported in a prison stagecoach with Dano to the local marshal. Dano’s father (Harrison Ford) shows up, not for his son, but for Craig, who he claims has robbed him. It’s at that moment that alien ships suddenly show up and start attacking the town. Craig seems to have some sort of alien technology, an armband weapon that shoots lasers, and he shoots down one of the ships.

After the footage was screened, the audience got to ask questions. Ford was asked if, when he first started acting, he ever imagined he’d be at an event like Comic-Con. “I just wanted to make a living as an actor, I didn’t know about this,” was his response.

Craig was asked what was going on with the next James Bond film, which has been delayed due to the financial problems with MGM, who produce the Bond movies. “It is on hold,” Craig responded. “I want to get going on it as quickly as possible.”

Favreau promised that they would have another Comic-Con panel next year. Hopefully the rest of the cast will also get to talk next time, but by showing promising footage now they built some early buzz for what has potential to be one of next summer’s movie bright spots (and hopefully better than Iron Man 2 or Jonah Hex).