The massive Paramount panel took place at Comic-con yesterday afternoon, where the studio leaked tidbits on Iron Man, Beowulf, Indiana Jones 4, and two J.J. Abrams projects. Here’s some notes from those who were there.

According to MTV, Abrams confirmed that Cloverfield is not going to be titled Monstrous. It still *could* be titled Cloverfield. But probably not. Also, there’s a new poster, which is getting a lot of bloggy attention. While most of the chatter seems to center around the question, “What is this, a Godzilla remake?” MOVIEBOB notes that visually, the poster looks a lot like a certain photograph taken on 09/11/01:

Now, Michael Bay can get away with it when he claims that he doesn’t think of 911 when crafting city-destruction scenes because, well, Michael Bay was born without a human soul. But Abrams and company, being both human and extremely insightful about humanity, MUST have either intended the analogous gut-punch this poster provides or at least recognized it and decided it was appropriate. I’m now even more strongly thinking what I was only considering when the blurry “spy” shots of this first appeared: Is this the real key to what this mystery-movie actually is?

At Cinematical, Kevin Kelly has a super-detailed live-blog of the whole thing. For Kevin, the highlight seems to have been Iron Man.

Wow. This film looks awesome. If I had any doubts about Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, they flew out the window once this started rolling. He’s a perfect snarky playboy character (a soldier asks him is he can take a picture with him, and he says “I don’t want to see this on your MySpace page”, but once the accident happens, he’s forever changed. He builds himself the original Iron Man suit, and comes striding to the tune of Iron Man. Then we get a brief look at the Mark II armor, which looks … phenomenal. He takes to the skies, racing two jets, and holy fanboy meter, Batman. I’m sold on Iron Man.

Meanwhile, David Poland was thoroughly unimpressed with anything Paramount had on display (with the possible exception of Jon Favreau’s newly streamlined physique), but it’s safe to say that Comic-con’s intro to the panel rubbed him the wrong way:

As has been noted before, we are now in the error/era of the PG-13 ComicCon. But they have also decided to censor the question and answer process, pointing out that on top of vetting your questions and expecting you to stick to the script, they expect the audience to be completely respectful of the talent “so they’ll keep coming back.” Again… a ComicCon disaster. Some of the best moments in years past have been the rude, horny, or stupid questions and the great or lame responses. If you can’t confront the stars “so they will come back,” within reason, what is the point of them coming at all?

I discussed this very issue yesterday on Randall Bennett’s Tech Check Daily podcast. My theory is that we’re heading into an era where Comic-con will become more media event/trade show than on-site experience/fan party. In five years, there will be wall-to-wall Co coverage on cable, and kids will stay home and have viewing parties. Because that’s what all of pop culture is movign towards, right? No one ever again having to leave the house?