Comic-Con International: San Diego 2017

Narcos fans probably felt intrigued by his work as Javier Peña, one of the two DEA agents who try to catch Pablo Escobar, the character that gave Wagner Moura a nomination to the Golden Globe. That was not the only opportunity this actor  - Chilean by birth, he grew up in United States - had to grab the attention on TV audiences:  besides his famous turn as Game of Thrones’ Oberyn Martell, Pascal and also worked in The Mentalist, Graceland and The Good Wife.

In an undisclosed location deep in the bowels of Comic-Con (ok in a modest fourth floor hotel room), the HFPA is once again hosting the actors and authors behind some of the films and shows showcased at the San Diego confab. Our crew (Mirai Konishi, Scott Orlin and Gabriel Lerman) asked some of them about their own Comic-Con experience.

“We left the block and we are out and about,” reveals Josh Holloway, talking to the HFPA at Comic Con 2017 about Season 3 of this hit show Colony. “Will has been doing nothing but every waking moment thinking how to get his family back together and save his children.

Outlander’s Sam Heughan stopped by the HFPA lounge at Comic-Con to chat about the new season of the Golden Globe nominated show and we were all a bit disappointed that he didn’t show up in a glorious kilt.   The conversation, however, was very romantic in a way, since season 3 will include a lot of emotional drama and forlorn love.

Comic-Con is a zoo. It’s hot and crowded.

The weekend is near and Comic-Con 2017 is reaching the boiling point. The weather is nice and balmy this year, but the crowds are bigger, the choice of attractions and events, wider, and the stars, busier than ever.

Blade Runner 2049 easily must be the most anticipated movie of the year  - if nothing else because of the absolute cult status of its forerunner: Ridley Scott’s 1982 seminal Blade Runner. That film infused a science fiction story (based on a Philip K Dick novella) about artificial intelligence and the fundamental question of human identity with a film noir sensibility lifted from hard boiled detective movies of classic Hollywood.

On the heels of the latest trailer released strategically in advance of Comic-Con, Blade Runner 2049 wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to woo its hardcore fans. Enter the Blade Runner 2049 Experience, which rapidly garnered a block-long line outside of the big top erected across form the convention center.

“Imagine the raw, gritty Los Angeles of Training Day meets Lord of the Rings” - that’s how Will Smith described Bright to the HFPA journalists attending Comic-Con.   That has got to be one of the most original statements in the history of film pitches but the three-minute trailer for the $100 million Netflix “urban fantasy drama” seems to confirm precisely those elements.

Wednesday was preview day and the last calm before the storm in San Diego with the first visitors allowed on the convention floor for an early pick of swag, mementos, and fantasy knick-knacks. Now the tsunami that is Comic-Con has finally hit in earnest as a wave of cosplayers swarmed the Convention Center, turning downtown into the usual bustling hub for alien life forms.