After a minor exchanging of words with a security guard, a wasted 30 minutes, and a long wait in the San Diego heat, I finally made it to the Solomon Kane panel (about 15 minutes late, mind you). On stage was the movie’s producer, Samuel Hadida, as well as Director, Michael J. Bassett and star James Purefoy. Personally, I was a little ignorant as to what exactly Solomon Kane was when assigned to the panel (a sequel to Citizen Kane?), but apparently it’s the latest adaptation of a Robert E. Howard character (creator of Conan the Barbarian).
The movie follows the origin of Solomon Kane, who works as a mercenary for Queen Elizabeth I. When Solomon finds out that his soul is pretty much damned if he keeps living the way he’s living, he decides to settle down, live a life of peace. There wouldn’t be a movie if he stayed like that though and eventually, he finds that living a life of peace isn’t easy when you have creepy monsters and witches are trying to kill you.
The main attraction of the panel was definitely the showing of a few finished clips from the movie. Anyone hoping that the film would be graphically violent will be endlessly happy. In fact, Purefoy went into almost unnecessary detail regarding how they decided to shoot the movie’s sword fight scenes. “We went to a butcher and bought a pig carcass,” he said. “Then hung it from the ceiling, dressed it in leather, and sliced it up with the sword to see what it really looked like.”
While the clips were interesting, it’s hard to say that they built up any true excitement. The first scene was the only quiet one and it had Kane walking with a family. They then discover a burned down town. They find nothing but dead bodies, all of which have had their eyes burnt out. Other scenes included a lot of fighting and sword slicing (thanks, dead pig), blood and severed heads, and even the Garreth Keenan dude from the British Office.
Overall, the panel was typical of a low-profile action movie. There were no big announcements and no questions asked that you couldn’t find the answer for online. Nothing about Solomon Kane screams blockbuster and though I’m sure there’s an audience for this stuff it definitely isn’t me.
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