The Legend Begins for Hercules
The actors on hand were Hercules himself, Kellan Lutz (the Twilight series, Immortals), Gaia Weiss, Liam McIntyre (Spartacus), and Scott Adkins (Expendables 2). Co-producer Jonathan Yunger was also along for the ride. The panel was a lot of fun from the start, as several of the actors took to the stage wielding swords and shields. (Those, we would be told, were actual, signed props from the film and were given out to some lucky winners at the end of the panel. Jealous.) As the questions began, Harlin immediately cracked a joke about rubbing tiger blood on Lutz’ muscles every day while on set.
Because, why not? Getting serious for a New York Comic-Con minute, the director said that he wanted to create a Hercules who the audience could see as a real character and not just a muscle man. To that end, he told Lutz to work out and “get cut, but I don’t want you to look like a giant.” Lutz tacitly acknowledged the existence of that other Hercules movie that’s currently in production -- the one with Dwayne Johnson -- saying that guy already has a lot of muscles, so they wanted to do something a little different anyway. As for “why Hercules?” -- Harlin compared the character to a superhero.
Actually, he called him the original superhero. “I think people have a lot of stereotypical ideas of who the character is, so we wanted to go to an origin story of Hercules, to a young guy who doesn’t really even know who he is,” he said. “We think this story is special because it’s a young man who comes from a dysfunctional family. Scott plays his dad, but of course it’s not really his dad because his real dad is Zeus. And Liam plays his friend, only eventually he’s really not his friend. … And one day he finds out that he’s a demi-god.
And that his mission is much grander and he has a destiny that he has to fulfill.” Harlin felt that the love story between Hercules and Weiss’ character Hebe was the key to the protagonist and his story. He was looking for someone who could play the “tragic love interest” -- someone innocent yet determined, soft yet tough -- but he had a hard time finding the right actress. After hundreds of auditions in multiple countries, he finally happened upon the newcomer Weiss. (She didn’t even have a proper agent when she got the job.) When it came time to run the trailer for the film, most of the cast jumped down off the stage to watch along -- much to the giddy excitement of the audience.
Harlin said he cut the piece together for New York Comic-Con, though he wished that he could screen it here in 3D -- the way it was shot. In fact, he told the crowd to “give a big boo to Comic-Con because their technology doesn’t allow us to show you this trailer in 3D.” (The crowd did.) As for the footage itself, it’s got a Gladiator feel at times, a bit of 300 to it, and maybe a dash of Clash of the Titans. The stuff that most impressed me was an enslaved Hercules who is forced to fight in the arena, which he proves quite adept at as he works a unique sort of move involving body-slamming poor bastards while impaling them with his sword.
There’s also glimpses of the love story between Hercules and Hebe, as well as a climactic moment where the hero finally seems to have accepted his lineage and takes to wielding lightning from the sky against his enemies. (Watch a teaser of the trailer below.) Lutz would later say that one of the scenes that meant the most to him to shoot was when Hercules gets crucified (!) and has to fully embrace his true name and heritage as Zeus’ son. In the end, perhaps it was McIntyre who summed up things best: “It’s got a hot dude in it who wants to make love to a beautiful woman. Understandable. And he gets everything taken away. And he has to kick a whole lot of ass to get it back. I’d go see it!”
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