The Wing Commander Movie site has been updated with pictures of some of the merchandise, and added music to the shockwave trailer. Check out the action figure packaging, the two delayed ships and two new retail posters!
Wow, I JUST saw another Wing Commander commercial! The tagline has been changed to "In 7 days gear, gear up, lock on, strike back, WING COMMANDER".
Both AICN & Yahoo have confirmed that the Wing Commander Movie will be preceeded by the Star Wars trailer. Here's Yahoo's report...
New "Episode I" Trailer Due March 12And here's AICN's...Call it a really nice hors d'oeuvre for all of us Star Wars weenies out there whose lives until the May 21 prequel premiere have been reduced to waiting...and rabidly consuming every little scrap George Lucas throws our way.
The new Episode I: The Phantom Menace trailer will premiere March 12, running exclusively in front of 20th Century Fox's space-battle-in-the-27th-century, Wing Commander, a well-placed source tells E! News Daily.
As far as official confirmation goes, LucasFilm will only say that no release date for the trailer has been announced yet. Ditto for official Fox comment.
Still, the coupling of the next trailer--purported to reveal more plot points and characters, including an appearance from Episode I's Phantom Menace himself, Darth Sidious--with the like-genred Wing Commander would seem to make sense, given Wing Commander's up-until-now scant promotion and the previous Star Wars trailer's ability to draw crowds to virtually any film. (When it debuted last November, it had people lining up to see the box-office dud Meet Joe Black.)
"I think running the two together is a teriffic idea," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, who thinks that the trailer negates the need for Fox to blow the budget marketing Wing Commander. "Why would you want to spend $30 million to market a $30 million movie?"
Why indeed, when you have the drawing power of a Star Wars trailer.
In fact, a prequel trailer represents a major event these days, especially when you consider that the following is being called news by the official Star Wars site (www.starwars.com): Episode I art department coordinator Blake Tucker has announced that subtitles in the film (used to translate "Huttese") will use the font ITC Franklin Gothic Demi Bold, 69 point with -30 tracking, a match to the titles used in the original Star Wars Trilogy.
Just so you know.
As for the film you may or may not stick around for, Wing Commander is based on the popular, eponymous video game that features erstwhile Luke, Mark Hamill. The film version stars Freddie Prinze Jr., Matthew Lillard and Saffron Burrows
STAR WARS EPISODE ONE Trailer Two will be with WING COMMANDERAlrighty folks, I finally heard from my bug on the bottom of Bill Mechanic's desk, and heard that on the weekend of the 12, 13 and 14... that the guaranteed place to see the 2nd trailer for STAR WARS EPISODE ONE... well... It'll be attached to WING COMMANDER the movie. After that weekend it's likely to be distributed to all types of films, and as far as I know it won't be with CORRUPTOR... unless the theater cuts it off the print of WING COMMANDER and sticks it on CORRUPTOR. According to my little electronic monitoring device tuned into Mr Mechanic... if you wanna see it... go see WING COMMANDER. I guess we can expect a firm announcement from the STARWARS.COM site any day now as... well... it's getting close to the wire.
Yeah... I know you folks in TALK BACK are saying "oooooooollld neeewwws" but this is no longer speculation, but straight from the top. I wasn't posting this bit until I had it absolutely confirmed, as I am sick and tired of speculation as to when the various trailers will hit. It was something like 6 different films the first time... But this is one for the bank...
There are now three confirmed Wing Commander commercials! As follows...
Original: The first commercial shown, similar to the 30 second downloadable trailer.
Tagline: Commercial with more SFX ending with the movie's tagline.
7 Days: Commercial which notes that the movie is 7 days away.
It's the luck of the English. How would you like it if your relatively low-budget $30 million sci-fi flick opened with a brand-new Star Wars: Episode One trailer attached? Just ask Chris Roberts. Strong rumor has it that his Wing Commander movie will open next week with the aforementioned trailer--which would make any movie an absolute killer box-office draw.Besides the Star Wars trailer, there's apparently some other sweet music to hear. Ain't It Cool News, a fun movie news site, has reviewed the Wing Commander score. According to the review, "David Arnold and Kevin Kiner's soaring score...is, simply, a score which is likely to go on long after the movie itself has faded into oblivion. It's not a tremendous score, but it is huge, energized, and propulsive." Huge, energized, and propulsive? That's not a musical score. That's my stomach the morning after I've whipped up some of my four-alarm chili.
Mention of Matthew Lillard from the March 1999 issue of Details, from the ubercool Matthew Lillard official site...
The METHOD ACTORHe's hung with De Niro and Depp. He knows Scarface and Hamlet line for line. And when he's not acting, he's acting out. The rebel without applause is played by MATTHEW LILLARD, a Scream psycho who pops up in four films this year, including S.L.C. Punk!, Wing Commander, and She's All That.
3 Questions With Chris Roberts Believe it or not, you actually might have a reason to stick around for the feature after you're done watching the new Star Wars trailer this month. That's because 20th Century Fox most likely will tie the Episode One preview to prints of Wing Commander, a sci-fi actioner starring Freddie Prinze Jr. that's based on the best-selling computer game series. The game was the brainchild of British-born designer Chris Roberts, who also was given the opportunity to direct the relatively low-budget $27 million film. CINESCAPE recently caught up with Roberts to ask what moviegoers can expect from the film:Q: How would you describe Wing Commander?
For me, it's sort of like a classic, nautical World War II movie, taking elements of Das Boot, or Tora! Tora! Tora! and sort of updating it and putting it in a science-fiction universe. It's sort of a World War II movie with a sci-fi spin.
Q: Why did you want to give it that World War II-feel?
The original game was sort of based on the war of the Pacific, but it was put in space because putting it in space is more fun. No one can say, 'No that's not the way the plane flies.' In the future you get to create things and take all the good bits and not worry about all the bad bits. That was the original inspiration for the game. But I'm a huge fan of World War II movies anyway and I thought it would be really great to take that concept onto the screen. So in the actual design of the picture, when you're on the ships or you're seeing the fighters flying around they're meant to be very evocative of submarines or World War II battleships or fighters. In the future that's probably not what space ships are going to look like but it was a definite style we wanted to go with to try to set the movie apart from other things like Star Wars. Obviously its a bit difficult to compete with that movie since it's the grandaddy of them all.
Q: You scored a bit of a coup by casting Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard as your leads, because they just had a hit with She's All That. Were they familiar with the game?
Oh, yeah. Freddie is a game player and Matt plays a fair amount of games as well, so that aspect made it a lot of fun.
I've recieved reports of what could be a third Wing Commander commercial, showcasing more of the movie's special effects and aimed at a younger audience. I haven't been able to confirm or deny this, yet, so keep watching...
The Entertainment Asylum will be holding a chat with Wing Commander star Freddie Prinze Jr. at 1:30 ET on March 11th.
Subject: Wing Commander Novel
Date: 4 Mar 1999 23:34:00 GMT
From: ptelep@aol.com (PTelep)
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.games.wing-commanderHey, folks:
If you've read the Wing Commander film novel and would care to write a review of it at Amazon.com, I'd really appreciate it. And send me your queries via email. I'm working on two more WC books right now, and it's great to listen to what the fans want. Hell, I'm a fan myself.
Peter Telep
Chris McCubbin, who you may recognize as having helped create the universe, reports that tickets to the Wing Commander are being sold through Star Tickets as a benefit. They cost between $15 and $22.50. The premiere is being held on March 11th at the Paramount in Austin, Texas at 8 pm. If anyone's going, let me know -- Chris Reid, Dan the Movie Guy and I are headed down there for the event, too. It'll be wing-commander-ific.
The ShowBiz interview with Freddie Prinze Jr. was ubercool! Several clips from the movie were shown, and the interview was very funny. If I had the ability I'd make a realmovie, but unfortunately I'm still shopping for a video encoder type thingy. Here's parts of the transcript from CNN's web site...
MORET: Joining us now is one of those young stars in the family business, Freddie Prinze Jr. His next assignment: taking on an alien race in the futuristic film, "Wing Commander." You return from the 26th century to come back here to talk about it. Tell us about this film. First of all, it was a very big CD-ROM, big video game. It did, I'm told, more than $100 million as a CD-ROM, which would be a hit film in any language.FREDDIE PRINZE JR., ACTOR: Yeah, that would be nice.
MORET: And now, you're in the new genesis of this.
PRINZE: Yeah, I'm in the part one, and it's like World War II, like 700 years in the future. It really is. It's very -- The director of the movie also made the game, the guy who directed the film, he create the game and he like knows everything about -- He's this huge World War II buff, so he made it -- It's very, like, symbolic. It's cool.
MORET: Now, obviously, this film will appeal to folks who like "Stars Wars." We're also being told that there's a possibility that the new "Star Wars" trailer may be in front of your film. Have you heard the same thing?
PRINZE: I have heard the same rumor, and...
MORET: Which would be good news for you.
PRINZE: It would be great news. It would be very good. It would be lovely things. Hopefully if Fox believes in the movie, then they'll do that.
MORET: Well, they clearly believe in the movie because of you in some part because you've got a hit now with "She's All That."
PRINZE: Yeah, "She's All That."
{snip}
MORET: Well, you did your own stunts for "Wing Commander," didn't you?
PRINZE: Yeah.
MORET: And you enjoy doing that?
PRINZE: Yeah, it's fun, man. It's like I'm all hooked up to wires like flying in the air. It's cool. It's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fun.
MORET: You know why you feel this way? You're 22, you feel you're invincible. It will change. I hope your success doesn't change.
PRINZE: Thank you very, very much.
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