Comic-Con: Sin City 2 performances '10 times, 100 times better'
Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller joined cast members Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin and Rosario Dawson for Saturday’s Comic-Con panel to promote Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
Almost as soon as everyone sat down Rodriguez cued up a sequence from the crime sequel in which the old avenger Marv played by Mickey Rourke dispatches four cruel men who try to set a homeless man ablaze.
Dimension Films is finally set to release A Dame to Kill For on August 22. It has been a long road since the 2005 original and Rodriguez referenced the gap several times.
“The first film was very early for green screen,” the director said. “People knew what they were going to do this time. The performances are 10 times, 100 times better.”
With regard to technology, Rodriguez recalled using heavy 3D cameras for Sin City. “The technology changed a lot in the last 10 years. This time we had Jim Cameron and Vince Pace cameras [the Fusion] right off the factory line and they were like Ferraris.
“The other thing that wasn’t around 10 years ago was the smart phone,” Rodriguez said. “I would be asleep in bed and I would turn on the built-in voice recorder and hum something and go back to sleep … 80% of the score was written on the phone.”
Miller had his own reflection. “I hadn’t seen [Alba] in eight years and wondered how had I pissed her off.”
This was in reference to Alba’s newfound steeliness in the role of Nancy Callahan. The actress spoke of tapping into the character’s dark side and evidently stayed locked into that mind-set between takes.
“Nancy was so sweet and she was a victim in the first one and in this one people will be pleasantly surprised to see her turn into a warrior,” she said.
Brolin never worked with Rourke on the film, even though there is a sequence where Marv carries Brolin’s character Dwight McCarthy.
“Being an actor you want to connect with another actor and Robert Rodriguez blew that to smithereens because especially doing green screen you don’t know how the movie is going to turn out,” he said, adding that he was amazed by the results.
The cast includes Eva Green as the titular temptress, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ray Liotta, Bruce Willis and Powers Booth.
Miller and Rodriguez had already spoken about a third Sin City and the former said he expected there would most likely be a another Sin City graphic novel.
He also spoke with some certainty of a big-screen adaptation of another of his graphic novel creations, Martha Washington.