The Moscone Convention Center's South's Hall A rapidly filled with fans this weekend at WonderCon to see the stars of Warner Bros. Studios "Get Smart" and "10,000 B.C." Once the crowd settled the panel started off with a very cheery "10,000 B.C." director Roland Emmerich introducing the current trailer and a new, convention exclusive cut that gave dialogue and fed the rumor that this may be tied to "Stargate," though Emmerich denied that immediately.
Stars Steven Strait and Camilla Belle then joined him on stage and they began the Q&A.
Emmerich started off saying that the movie isn't based on real history, but he liked always liked the animals of the time and wanted to do a film featuring them and that time period.
A fan asked if his next film would be "2012," which Emmerich confirmed but when he was asked what he could tell the audience about the film his reply was simple. "Nothing."
Asked where he got his ideas, Emmerich mentioned that his mom says he has always had a vivid imagination. Another fan wanted him to elaborate on his influences. He says it goes back to "Stargate" and the excitement of what you could do with a film.
Emmerich was then asked what made him want to become a movie director. "Well, I didn't, actually," Emmerich admitted. He originally wanted to be an architect, but found himself getting into film projects at film school, doing more and more with each project he worked on until he eventually become a director and has never looked back since.
The cast was asked what they needed to do to prepare for the film. Steven Strait mentioned the difficulty of the dialogue. They had to "really get used to the hybrid English/Arabic accent" used for dialogue and a good deal of physical training for the action. Camilla Belle was quick to point out that only the male cast had to do the physical training. Belle worked on simplifying her actions to reflect the period, which she thought would be representative of the time period.
When Strait was asked if he was worried about injury on the film he joked that he always does. Then he praised the great stunt team they worked with to do the action pieces, pointing out that Strait never got more than scrapes or bruises during the entire shoot.
One younger fan wanted to know what inspired Emmerich to make movies. Laughing, Emmerich said, "I live in Hollywood and I loves stories."
The cast was asked how hard it was to work with the computer generated creatures. Strait found, "It was hard at first, but eventually the cast came to use their imagination." Belle admitted that she always feels "stupid running from men in blue unitards trying to scare us. I would always start laughing."
The next question saw parallels to Robert E. Howard's "Conan" series and wonders if this was a direct influence on the movie. Emmerich says that "10,000 B.C." definitely draws a lot from those books since the setting and lack of knowledge about that time period allows you to really "go wild with it."
A fan wanted to know how the actors knew how to act with no source material for these types of characters. Strait answered that he figured they were still humans and it was about using the real emotions that are universal to everyone. Strait found it helped that the movie was shot in sequence so "you are growing as the movie character grows." Belle admitted she did not do much preparation and just enjoyed the experience.
The last question turned out to be a convention favorite: Who is your favorite superhero?
Emmerich likes Batman, "because he has no powers."
Strait chose the Punisher because he grew up with comics.
Camilla Belle was a little stumped, "because I didn't grow up with comics," but leans towards Batman because he had no powers and is about personal power.
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