As most of y’all likely already know, this past weekend was Comic-Con 2006 in San Diego, which means an exceedingly large amount of news in the fanboy department. To wit:
Regarding perhaps the most anticipated comic-to-film property nearing post-production, Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3, the attending panel offered a number of new shots of the main characters, including an iconic poster of Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman and — at right — That 70s Show‘s Topher Grace, a.k.a. Venom, having a painful-looking first run-in with the black suit/symbiote.
Also in Marvel’s wheelhouse, Jon Favreau premiered the teaser poster for his take on Iron Man, and confirmed the villain of his film, the Mandarin.
In other Marvel news, Louis Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk has picked a villain, too, that being the Abomination.
On the DC side, Bryan Singer is looking to revisit Superman in 2009, even though the jury’s still out on Superman Returns.
The inimitable Peter Jackson, via remote (and still not making The Hobbit) showed off a scene from his extended DVD version of King Kong (my love of the extended LotR versions notwithstanding, count me among those who thought Kong needed tightening more than anything else.)
Not Comic-Con news, per se, but worth mentioning here: Former Jedi Samuel Jackson and Hayden Christensen may reunite for the film version of Steven Gould’s Jumper, a surprisingly solid little take on the hoary old teleportation meme, to be directed by Doug Liman of Swingers and The Bourne Identity.
J.J. Abrams of Lost, Alias, and M:I:III brought along a teaser poster for his Trek reboot, which, word has it, puts young Kirk (Matt Damon?) and Spock back at Starfleet Academy.
In other sci-fi television news, J. Michael Straczynski announced he’ll be revisiting the world of Babylon 5, albeit in straight-to-video spinoffs.
Also regarding sci-fi on the telly, Battlestar Galactica‘s Ron Moore showed up to kick some more k-nowledge about BSG Season 3, due in October (which complement the recent spoilers here.)
And lots of other news, including Kurt Russell in Quentin Tarantino’s half of Grindhouse, a look at Zack Snyder’s 300, talk of the Star Wars spinoffs, teaser posters for Michael Bay’s Transformers, and descriptions of clips from Neil Gaiman/Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust. Yep, Comic-Con seems like good fun…perhaps I’ll make it out someday.