Comic-Con 2013: ‘I, Frankenstein’ Panel

Fans who came out for Lionsgate's Comic-Con 2013 panel for 'The Hunger Games' sequel, 'Catching Fire,' also got a taste of the studio's lesser-known offering: 'I, Frankenstein.' It was only recently that the film kickstarted its promotional rounds with posters, images and the like, but did its presentation in Hall H on Saturday, July 20 intrigue the fans enough?

Set in a dystopian present where vigilant gargoyles and ferocious demons rage in a battle for ultimate power, Victor Frankenstein's creation Adam finds himself caught in the middle as both sides race to discover the secret to his immortality.

Writer/director Stuart Beattie, graphic novel creator Kevin Grevioux, and stars Yvonne Strahovski and Aaron Eckhart came out to introduce ‘I, Frankenstein.'

“This is a Frankenstein unlike you’ve ever seen before,” said Beattie. “He’s been alive for 200 years, seemingly immortal.” He quickly gets caught up in the world of gargoyles and demons, two warring species -- the latter of which hope to study Frankenstein in the hopes of unlocking the key to his immortality.

“This is a hardcore action thriller,” said Eckhart. “We all trained really hard to do it.”

Beattie then presented a sizzle reel of the film -- "Just a taste to give you an idea of what the film is like,” he said. “I really was trying to find a whole new language to action.”

“After ‘Underworld’ I was trying to find another way to bring another monster to life,” said Grevioux, who was also featured as a Lycan in the original ‘Underworld’ film. He initially wrote a screenplay and from that wrote the graphic novel.

To bring the action scenes of Frankenstein to life, Eckhart utilized a couple of stunt trainers, including one from Cirque du Soleil to go through the motions.

Strahovski is an electrophysiologist. When we first see her, she’s experimenting on a dead rat, trying to animate the corpse, and she doesn’t know this whole world of gargoyles and demons. Nor does she believe Frankenstein is a real being. “I think there’s some sort of discovery of one another in the movie,” she said. “She describes [Adam] as 'it' and is describing 'it' very scientifically.” One of the themes of the movie, according to her, is what it means to be human and how these characters learn that. All Adam wants, however, is a companion and hopes Strahovski’s character is it.

“Our story begins where Mary Shelley’s story ends, with Adam carrying his father,” said Beattie. “Then the film flashes forward and we see Adam is still very much alive.

Though he’s not a monster in the classically grotesque interpretations of the past, Beattie does promise that Adam is heavily scarred and patched up at the beginning of the film. Where we see him later on, his scars have healed (having received the benefits of 200 years of natural scar regeneration). “There’s only so much ugly you can made Eckhart,” joked Beattie.

'I, Frankenstein' stars Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto, Socratis Otto, Jai Courtney and Kevin Grevioux, and is set for release on January 24, 2014.