The casts and crews of The Mummy: Brendan Fraser Must Do Huge Business Internationally and Death Race show off their wares. Yay, unnecessary sequels and remakes! (Yes, Karina wrote this intro.)

Highlights:

–Sam Raimi says another Evil Dead movie is “in the wheelhouse.” If you’re not familiar with it, that expression means “being very close to accomplishing a goal.”

–Two surprise clips of Drag Me To Hell were shown; one was good/funny, the other awful.

–Sid and Marty Krofft say H.R. Puffnstuf will be turned into a movie after Land of the Lost, and “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters after that.”
–Brendan Fraser is apparently perennially hopped up on over-the-counter cold medicine.

–Joan Allen swears a lot in Death Race.

Full live blog after the jump!

5:25 - They wrapped us out with a teaser trailer that featured Will Ferrell in front of a T-Rex… “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” It looks terrible. Will Ferrell failed to appear, and we’re out.

5:20 - Now we’ve devolved into actors talking about what it was like working on the movie, etc etc. Everyone keeps praising The Foot Fist Way, so I guess I might need to watch it.

5:18 - Danny McBride is talking about The Foot Fist Way, and a handful of people cheer. Danny: “And hey… about ten people have seen it! Allright!”

5:17 - First question from the floor is from the Crank kid who has literally asked the first question at every panel today. If you’re looking for a hired plant, this kid obviously knows how to get some doors open.

5:15 - It’s obviously a pre-recorded bit, but it’s pretty darn funny. He’s supposed to be answering questions from the audience, but he’s answering completely different questions.

“You know what? This is stupid…”

He walks offscreen…and….well, not onto the stage, as expected.

5:12 - Brad: “So before we move on, someone wanted to chime in… can we hit the link here?”
Will Ferrell pops on a wonky video feed that’s replete with video transmission errors.
Brad: “So, where are you?”
Will: “I’m actually here in San Diego as well, at the Hotel Del Coronado. There was some sort of an accident that I’m not allowed to talk about, so I’m here in a conference room.”

5:11 - Q: “So what will you have in the movie? Sleestaks?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “Grumpy and Alice?”
A: “Yes. They’re in there.”
Q: “Pylons and crystals?”
A: “Oh yes.”
5:10 - Q: “So… I’m hearing rumblings that H.R. Pufnstuf is coming next?”

Sid Krofft: “Yes, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters after that.”

So my childhood will officially have been strip-mined, tagged, bagged, and sold ln store shelves. That’s kind of sad.

5:09 - Marty Krofft: “It’s really great seeing this on the big screen, and it’s amazing. Our father told us to never give up on a Friday, because if you give up on a Friday, you don’t have a Saturday.” Which… I don’t quite understand.

Jorma Taccone, who plays Chaka in the film, is talking about watching the original series on repeats in the early 80s. “My friends used to act this out after they saw it on TV, and they told me that literally no one wanted to play Chaka.”

5:05 - Now they’re playing the real theme song… so they’ve camped this old TV series up with comedy. Dammit. Here’s everyone from the movie…. except Will Ferrell. Including Sid and Marty Krofft.

5:03 - Next up…Sleestaks invade the Comic-Con stage! Hissing and lurking. LAND OF THE LOST, folks.
A clip of Will Ferrell singing the Land of the Lost theme song, complete with a banjo. He can’t remember the words to the theme song.

5:02 - It’s a clip where Allison and Justin are asleep in bed, and a fly crawls up Allion’s nose and into her mouth. Everyone shouts EWWWWW! Then Allison wakes up, and the old lady is in bed with her, and then she barfs all over her. Nice.

4:59 - It’s time for… another clip. They sure haven’t been skimping on showing us footage today.

4:54 - Q: “This footage looked a little bit like Evil Dead…does that mean we might see another Evil Dead?”

A: “Well, I’d love to work with Bruce again, because I’d like to test his limits. I’d love to do another Evil Dead movie and…that’s in the wheelhouse. I’m going to start talking with my brother about that next week.”

So, you heard it hear first… there might possibly be another Evil Dead movie. Woot!

4:52 - Q: From a tiny little young girl. “Justin, you do all the commercials for the Macintosh… but do you actually own a Mac?

A: “Oh.. wow… you’re so very cute. What a cute way to ask that question. And… yes, I do. I own a Mac.”

Q: “So, Allison, is it really true about the bruises? Did you get knocked around?”

A: “Well, yes, Sometimes Sam would…”

Justin: “Beat her.”

*laughter*

Allison: “Well, there was one time while filming, the scene you just saw, when she was choking me it didn’t look real, so I told her to really choke me.” Wow.

4:50 - Okay, I’m back.

Next question: “Do any of the younger Raimis have any filmmaking aspirations?”

Sam: “Well, I don’t know… some of them have shown interest in writing stories. But, my wife is very careful not to have anything from the films around the house… no toys or anything. So, I don’t know.”

4:49 - First question: “Will Bruce Campbell appear anywhere in this movie?”

A: “No.”

DAMMIT! I quit. I’m leaving Hall H.

4:48 - Okay, the clip they showed us was, surprisingly, funny. Plus it looked like a return to the Evil Dead-style comedy horror I was just lamenting.

4:40 - Dear god, this really is a horror film panel… they’re going to show us another clip.

4:42 - I’m literally weeping on the inside, wondering where the Sam Raimi from Evil Dead has vanished to.

Heck, even the Sam Raimi from Spider-Man 1 and 2.

The actors are talking about working with Sam Raimi, saying things like “We had fun!” and yadda yadda.

Allison Lohman “I think every day I had a new bruise or cut. It’s the most physical film I’ve ever worked on.” Justin Long is wearing a little leather Justin Timberlake porkpie hat.

4:40 - Sam Raimi is summing up the plot of the movie, which I think could best be re-summarized as, “We just decided to regurgitate every popular horror film from the last several years.”
4:37 - Here comes Sam Raimi, along with Dileep Rao, Justin Long, and Allison Lohman from the film.

Q: “So why’d you decide to direct this after Spider-Man 3? You could have chosen any film you wanted.”

Sam: “I… could’ve chosen something else? No one told me. No, I love horror pictures, and I have a company with my producing partner, Rob Tappert. This was like a good campfire story to us. I wanted to get back to the basics and work with a smaller budget. I want to get back to doing what I really love doing, which is telling ghost stories.”

4:36 - It was a clip of Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell, which looks fairly stupid. I mean, worse than Spider-Man 3 stupid.

4:35 - Now we’re shifting gears into “straight up horror” with a clip.

4:34 - And I’m just now realizing this panel lasts until 5:15. I just had a flash of a nightmare where I’m trapped inside Comic-Con’s Hall H for the rest of my life.

4:33 - Last question… a kid even tinier than the first kid gets up to ask a question, and Ian McShane cracks, “Crank 3!”

Now everyone is singing Happy Birthday to Jason Statham. When you hear a whole room of people singing it, you really realize how much that song sucks.

Now they’re readying something else for us.

4:30 - Eric: “Joan, this isn’t really the type of movie we’d expect to see you in…”

Joan: “Well, I read the script about a year ago, and any script where you can’t put it down and keep turning the page intrigues me. But, I really liked this and we all decided to do it.”

Tyrese: “Well, I really loved you in The Notebook…”

Joan: “Thank you, although that’s a… little bit different genre.”

4:29 - They’re talking about the stunt drivers and how great they are and all that jazz. I really want to know, how was the key grip? Why do people never talk about that?

4:27 - Now it’s question time, and a young kid says “Jason, so what’s up with Crank 2?”

Jason: “It’s done and dusted! They’re getting it ready for next year.”

Little kid: “Yesssss!”

Ian: “Hold on, aren’t you too young to have even seen Crank 1?!”

4:25 - It might shock you to know this movie features a lot of cars and violence. I know, the name Death Race might have fooled you into thinking it was a romantic comedy, but there you have it.

In the clip, Statham’s character blasts away at his opponent’s car, before causing him to drive into a pylon, and when he gets out of the car, he snaps his neck. Ah, the love.
4:21 - Now it’s time for…. wait for it…. a clip. They’re going to show a few minutes of a race scene halfway through the movie where Jason’s character is chasing the man who killed his wife. It’ll show how you activate the offensive systems in your car, by driving over a symbol on the road… sort of like when you play Mario Kart.
4:20 - Joan Allen: “I play the warden of the penitentiary, and I’m behind the Death Race, and I manipulate Jason Statham’s character quite a bit.”

4:19 - Ian McShane says “What? What’s this? What are we talking about? Death Race is NASCAR, in prison, in the future, and it’s shown on the internet. And Joan Allen is in it and she says ‘fuck’ a lot. What more do you want?”

Tyrese “I play Machine Gun Joe… and he’s just a bad, bad man. I’m just really nervous right now!”

4:18 - They’re going down the line and introducing the characters, and explaining what they’re racing for…it’s a bit like that Fox TV show called Drive… which got canceled last summer.

4:17 - Paul introduces Roger Corman, who comes out to tepid applause. I’m convinced that most of the people in this room have no idea who Roger Corman is.

Roger “As proud as I am of Death Race 2000, I have to say Death Race is a bigger and better movie.” Is he on the studio’s dime?

4:16 - Paul is going on about what a fan he was of Death Race, and “being so adrenalized by it. I wanted to drive my mother’s Mini, which I’d borrowed, straight through the side of a truck after I saw it.”

“We’re doing this with real cars, not CGI, in an old school 1970s fashion.

4:15 - Today is Jason’s birthday, and Eric asks “So did you think you’d be spending your birthday here at Comic-Con?”

A: “Uh, yeah. I knew about six weeks ago.”

Thanks for taking up our precious time with that question.

4:14 - Next up…the remake of Death Race…Here comes the director Paul W.S. Anderson, Natalie Martinez, Ian McShane, Tyrese Gibson, Joan Allen (wow, amidst this group?) and Jason Statham… who the crowd goes crazy for.

4:13 - Farewell to The Mummy folks, and people are streaming out the doors again. Were folks literally just waiting on that panel? I hope they didn’t go home disappointed.

4:11 - Last question comes from a kid, who says “Brendan, I think you’re great… I actually got in trouble for punching a kid when I was playing O’Connell…”

Brendan: “Wait, you’re putting this on me?!”

The audience goes “OoooooOOOOooooOOoooooOOOoooooooohhhhhhhhhh.”

Q: “Well, what I want to ask is, who’s more intimidating? The Rock or Jet Li?”

Brendan: “Well, I didn’t get to meet Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when we shot the second Mummy movie, he was literally a blue x on a stick. So, I’ll just say they’re both nice guys.”

4:09 - I swear to god, you could get a cavity listening to these two praise each other, it’s so sweet. Give us some good stuff, people. Tell us Universal threatened you with a hex or a curse or something.

Jet Li: “I’ve always played a good guy, someone’s brother, friend, cousin, dog… it’s always fun to make a character like a villain. I love playing something like this… this is The Mummy, right?” Was that a little dig?

4:07 - Well, we just found out why Brendan Fraser took the role… “I’ll do anything as long as there are ice packs and tape involved.”

Michelle and Jet were asked what drew them to this movie, and Michelle Yeoh said “Well, Brendan is just so cute…”

Brendan: “Did she just say that?! That’s Michelle Yeoh!”

4:06 - Michelle Yeoh is talking about what it was like to fight with Jet Li, but I can literally only see the Yeti scene playing over and over in my head.

4:03 - Now, it’s cliptime yet again.

Wow.

It looks pretty bad.

They fight with Yeti in the clip they showed us. Yes, that’s right: The Abominable Snowman.

One of the Yeti kicks a soldier square in the ass and sends him over an archway. The Yeti who made the kick turns to another Yeti, and he shoots the “touchdown” symbol of hands up in the air. Good grief.

4:00 - I’ve already fallen asleep.

Seriously, I don’t think anyone on the cast has started to hear all the bad buzz about this movie. Yesterday during the “Trailer Park” panel where they just show trailers, a ton of people booed The Mummy 3 trailer.

3:59 - This is the second time I’ve seen Brendan Fraser in the past few months, and he always seems like he’s hopped up on cough syrup and ephedrine. His eyes tend to get super wide and he has this goofy grin on his face, and he rambles like you wouldn’t believe. He’s talking about the Olympics, and about why The Mummy is so beloved, and what it’s like to bring people together and enlighten them. Does this guy think he’s Deepak Chopra?

Brendan says “We have a treat for you…. there’s a scene where we’re racing to get to a temple or a “stupa” in the Himalayas, and if I diamond is placed on it, it reveals the path to Shangri-La, and…” zzzzzz.

3:57 - Michelle Yeoh said that she and Jet Li have normally been on the same side, but now they’re squaring off against each other. “Most of the struggle was in keeping a straight face!”

Brendan asked Michelle Yeoh if there was anything he needed to know when working with Jet Li, and she told him “Yes, hit him first, and very hard.

3:54 - Eric: “Maria, you’re known for your work in indie film, what was it like working in this?”
Maria: “Well, I’m not naked in this film!”
Guy near me: “Wow, that was the wrong thing to say. They just lost my ticket.”

3:50 - Here comes everyone from The Mummy, including Maria Bello, John Hannah, Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh, and Jet Li. The crowd goes insane for Jet Li, and someone shouts TAKE IT OFF! Wow. You stay classy, San Diego.