The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones Panel at Comic-Con 2013
Much like the upcoming Divergent series, I feel like The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones gets categorized as trying to be the next The Hunger Games or Twilight. From what I understand (I haven’t read any of the series by Cassandra Clare), it’s about a “Shadowhunter” that is half-angel, half-human that discovers her true self while trying to save her mother. Friday, they held a panel with director Harald Zwart, author Cassandra Claire, and stars Lily Collins, Godfrey Gao, Kevin Zegers, Robert Sheehan, Jamie Campbell Bower that gave new insight to the upcoming movie.
During the panel, we got to see an extended clip that showed the start of Clary (Collins) and Jace’s (Bower) relationship. However, it also cleared up some of the confusion I had with the fantasy portion of the film. According to the clip, Jace is a “Shadowhunter” that appears invisible to normal humans. However, Clary bridges the gap between the two kinds by seeing both of them. But what are they battling? Demons. And these demons are the reason Clary’s mom disappears.
During a short Q&A session, there were a few things worth mentioning, including the the source material. According to Cassandra Clare, the movie is very true to the book. Since she had a hand in everything from cast to costumes to story, she helped create the movie quite a bit. Zwart admitted that they had to take some shortcuts in the story, but this is understandable given pretty much every book adaptation.
The funniest part of the panel, in my opinion, was when Bower talked about his character. According to him, Jace is “a sassy bitch.” Since he’ll inevitably become a love interest (I’m guessing here), I’m curious how he will redeem his character.
Besides the panel members, City of Bones stars Jared Harris and Lena Headey. Unfortunately, neither of them were mentioned in the panel. Instead, it focused more on the panels’ characters. They showed the close connection between all the actors by cracking plenty of jokes.
In all, it was nice seeing new footage for the film. Personally, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones doesn’t really look like my kind of movie. However, I understand the draw behind the film. No matter how much you care about the movie, you can agree that keeping it close to the source material should be a number 1 priority. In this case, it appears the movie should be just fine. We’ll know for sure on August 21!
Studio: Sony & Screen Gems
Director: Harald Zwart
Starring: Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers
Release Date: August 21
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