By
Eli Green
September 2, 2009 - 15:00
The signs keep coming that major studios and media corporations are paying closer and closer attention to what their fans are saying and have their attention on, as convention floors are more and more becoming the testing grounds for early product promotion. It could be seen at the New York Comic-Con, has become a major part of the San Diego Comic-Con over the past couple of year, and has now made its way to Canada.
Walking the floor at Fan Expo 2009, it was quite clear that the media corporations are starting to understand the importance of going where the fans are. DC and Marvel Comics took up their usual amount of space – a whole four booth square – and each of the big three video game console manufacturers had its own area to show off its latest and greatest, or, in the case of Sony and Microsoft, some major up-and-coming titles. Microsoft had a demo copy of Forza Motorsport 3running, complete with the Xbox 360 Racing Wheel and a big screen HDTV to show off all of the high definition goodness. Meanwhile, Sony had playable demo kiosks for Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Timeand God of War III, though I'm not sure that was such a good idea, considering there were plenty of kids walking the floor who could have simply walked up and played the game (there is no way that game is getting lower than an M rating). Even Electronic Arts' BioWare studio was showcasing it's upcoming RPG, Dragon Age: Origins(actually rated M).
|
The real show stopper though, and probably the biggest proof that the convention floor is the new early promotion ground, was Disney's showcasing of the upcoming TRON sequel, TRON Legacy. Fan Expo attendees got a first hand, if not hands on, look at the new Light Cycle, for which Disney had a booth specially assigned, where people could view the film's proof-of-concept trailer (below), look at concept drawings for the Light Cycle and walk right up and touch it, and take pictures with it.
More importantly, Disney held multiple conferences to give fans of the original film a sneak peek at what they can expect to see in Legacy. The nearly hour-long conferences explained director Joseph Kosinski's background and gave insight into what would be seen in the film, shown through a large portfolio of concept art, including cyber world environments, new vehicle concepts and new takes on vehicles and other objects found in the original TRON. Also shown were render tests for the post production animation, and filming tests done in preparation for the new disc battle stunt scenes – the tests were shot on a high speed camera, at 300 frames per second, to catch all of the stunt actors' movement. Let's just say that disc battles are going to look significantly different from how they did in the original film.
TRON Legacy is still 16 months away from release, but Disney fully understands the importance of getting the hype started now, and who better to start with than the fans you know you'll already have. That's also why the conferences were stuffed to the gills. Adding a last little taste of what's to come, approximately two minutes of the film was shown – all in the real world, since there is still a lot of post production to be done on the cyber world scenes – in which Sam Flynn enters the long-closed Flynn's Arcade and finds the TRON game.
Unfortunately, we have nothing to show, as filming and photography were not allowed during the conferences. What we can tell you though is that the film will feature some kind of a father-son story, new takes on the original concept and an entire score by Daft Punk. With 16 months to go to the film's release Disney still has quite a ways to go, but it has taken the first step in intelligent promotion of the film, bringing a sneak peek to those who are most likely to talk about it for the longest time.
ComicBookBin
