As I sit and write this retrospective about my third San Diego Comic-Con for Reel Talk Inc., I can’t help but think about the first time I went back in 2017. I remember thinking it would be impossible for me to go for the press because I hadn’t been writing for the site all that long yet and I feel like I went into the signing up part a bit blind, even though I had some help from my peers on the site. Once I got the opportunity, it felt surreal, but what was even more daunting was stepping into that Convention Center for the first time.
I did my first Comic-Con solo. Small fish in a vast pond and had to wing the experience as I went. What helped my first night was that I met different people that took me in and provided me with a crew to take in this whole experience. It’s mostly like adult summer camp. You make new friends, and for those five days you are bonded by the collective experience of just being there, and if you happen to be there for work, it’s just a bonus.
For my 2018 Comic-Con experience, I invited my friend Morgan Brown. Despite it being fun to navigate it alone the year before and meet new people, it was also gratifying to share the whole experience with a friend. Having her there gave me more confidence in what I was doing and, for her, she was impressed by how I was able to cover as much of the Con as I could, primarily as a solo act. The team is always in my ear via text or social media, but the on the floor action is all me, and I try to give 100% so we can report back breaking news to our readers at a lightning-fast pace. How cool is it to slip them information before other outlets pick it up? I’ll tell you; it’s pretty damn cool. Like the year before, new friends were made, and since I RSVP’d for more press parties in 2018, it resulted in a lot of networking. It wasn’t until then that I realized that these events aren’t just meant to sip cocktails and eat free food. This is all about making connections and seeing how those connections can take things to the next level.
This year I upped the ante but not only inviting Morgan again, but I also invited my friend Jake Palmer (Sixteen Candles fans his middle name is Ryan, and yes, his mom did that on purpose) and Erika Ketz. I figured the more, the merrier this year and maybe more people to help me get things done because this was the 50th anniversary of San Diego Comic-Con and the vibe in the air was that this one was going to be very special.
Before my friends arrived, I headed up early for Preview Night on Wednesday, and it was the first Preview Night I’ve done since doing this where I didn’t feel rushed. I got in by 3:00 PM and I had ample time to check into my hotel and get myself situated before heading down to the Convention Center. I only had one real event on my agenda for the night: ScareDiego featuring the cast and director of It: Chapter Two.
Since that was the only thing I had on deck, I decided I would head down early and just lineup. I was messaging people in the Reddit and Discord group who wanted to get there around 7:00 and that just seemed too late for a Q/A that opened the doors at 7:30 with the panel set to start at 8:00. I got down there around 6:30 and was happy to see that the line wasn’t all that long yet and that I would likely be able to score a decent seat.
There wasn’t a ton of line chatter heading in. I had a few casual conversations, but it was almost as if everyone was saving their full geeking out banter for the official start of the Con the next day. As we headed into the auditorium, the lobby was decorated with red balloons so that as soon as you walked in, you knew you were getting the full It experience. The setup wasn’t too elaborate, just enough to get you excited for what you were about to see.
As we entered the actual theater, I realized my decision to line up early was a wise one. The theater had ground-level seating and balcony seating, which means if you got in line late, you were likely to end up in the nosebleed section. I knew I wasn’t going to get in the front row, but at least I could stay on the lower level and have the people on stage not look like ants from afar.
ScareDiego was hosted and moderated by Conan O’Brien who is a bit of a fixture at Comic-Con. He brings his showdown to the event, and it tends to full up very quickly. So quick that fans at the Con will try to make trades to score a ticket. It felt good not to have to try to make deals to see him because there he was, center stage, full of energy and ready to guide us through the Q/A.
The panel for It: Chapter Two was a bit different from a standard Comic-Con panel. It was a little less formal, and since it was in the evening, it added to the eeriness that they were trying to sell to the crowd. It also felt like its very own event outside of the regular Con schedule, so a lot of it felt much more heightened than usual.
I have to say that during the hour-long ScareDiego panel, I was impressed by director Andy Muschietti and the cast which included Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, James Ransone, Jay Ryan, Isaiah Mustafa, and Andy Bean. If their chemistry on stage were any indication, we would be happy to see the adult Losers Club come to life on the big screen. There was camaraderie on that stage, which is always lovely to know when a cast is promoting an ensemble piece.
So what did we learn about It: Chapter Two? Despite the panel being a little over an hour, we didn’t learn A LOT, but we did get a new trailer (which we posted the very next day on our page), and we got three new scenes which pretty much supported that theme of the film, according to Bill Hader and director Andy Muschietti, is about childhood trauma:
“There’s a lot of emotion in the movie. It was about childhood trauma — all of us growing up together [with it]. It wasn’t just this awesome scary movie, which it is, but it also has a really beautiful story to it.” – Bill Hader
“As much as ‘It: Chapter One‘ is a movie about friendship and the power of unified belief, the second part is more about trauma. We will discover things that we didn’t know about The Losers — [things] that started in that summer of 1989. That event cemented their paths from [when they were] young to adulthood, making their behavior pathological and recurring. So some of the things that you’re going to see in ‘Chapter Two‘ are things we don’t know about The Losers, and the event that started it all happened that summer. The reason why we didn’t see it in ‘Chapter One‘ is they don’t remember.” – Andy Muschietti
One of the scenes we saw was a lengthy sequence which sees the group reuniting for the first time since they grew up, including a moment when Mike (Mustafa) talks about how his friends’ memories may have been affected by leaving town. This was followed by a scene that was a bit of an extended version of what we saw in the trailer which shows Bill (McAvoy) getting trapped in a hall of mirrors with Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) as he tries to protect a child. The last scene dug deeper into the movie, and if you’re wondering why I’m a bit vague with the descriptions, we were told by Conan O’Brien, who was speaking for Warner Bros., not to spoil too much about what we saw.
The cast did discuss how they became familiar with playing older versions of the kids introduced in the first film. It: Chapter One was their primary frame of reference when it came to identifying different mannerisms for their characters. Another cute tidbit was that the child actors from the first film each wrote a letter to their older selves and shared it with the adult performers portraying them, which made them feel even more connected to the first film.
The shoot itself wasn’t straightforward from a physical or mental standpoint. Hader said he had “dreams” of Muschietti asking for one more take time and time again, even after the director knew they got the shot. This was something the director back up by admitting he likes to have multiple options in the editing room. McAvoy said he ended up with tendinitis for six months after shooting and pulled muscles in both of his legs. While that sounds horrible, Jessica Chastain went through the wringer as well. We learned about the vast amount of fake blood used in the film because of her (4,500 gallons) and apparently, it’s a record-breaking scene involving her character. Due to her statement about wanting to go all out with the blood, she found herself daily being put in a kiddie pool of blood with blood being poured on her while wind turbines are blowing everywhere. She’s covered in blood for most of the third act.
After all the talk of fake blood and who had it the worse, it was time for the panel to end. For a first day, it was indeed a treat and very well-handled for the fans who honestly gave the stage a lot of love. You can tell that most of us can’t wait for September 6 to get here.
After ScareDiego was over, I got a text from some buddies I met at the Con last year: Ryan and Kenny. Last year the boys flew in solo, but this year Kenny also brought his wife Jordan, and when I eventually met up with them, it was clear she was one of the boys and would be a blast this weekend. All of us had press access to a bar called the Coin-Up, which offered us an open bar for two hours, and since it was a gaming bar, we also got three hours of free gameplay.
I think the best part of us ending our night there was that you could feel the energy of the event with everyone dressed up and having a good time, but it was also a time for us to decompress and enjoy ourselves with the pressure of what we would have to cover next. It was also refreshing to realize that the chemistry I had with this group last year didn’t skip a beat. I hadn’t seen these guys in a year, and it was like we just saw each other yesterday. That’s the real power of Comic-Con. It’s the friendships you make by sharing this unique experience. Ending night one with them was a perfect while to conclude the evening, and we were just getting started.
