Comic-Con 2011: Underworld: Awakening Coverage and Panel

The Underworld series has lasted remarkably longer than anybody ever predicted - it just goes to show you that vampires vs. werewolves is a can't-lose proposition. After a brief departure from the continuty with the Rhona Mitra-starring Rise Of The Lycans, we're back in the main continuty for 4, which is subtitled Awakening. The series is back with the fourth traditionally-named sequel, which has Kate Beckinsale back as Selene. As she awakens (get it!) from a 15 year coma, Selene discovers that she has a teenage daughter who is half werewolf, half vampire, and the antagonists BioCom are developing a new breed of Lycans to wreck the joint. The film also stars Michael Ealy, India Eisley and Charles Dance.

The team showed a two and a half minute sizzle reel that they claimed will never be shown again, which elicited a pop from the Comic-Con audience. Opening with Beckinsale waking up in a cryogenic coffin, breaking out and finding a convenient leather outfit, it goes on to do what the series does best - show its gorgeous star in skin-tight clothes wrecking fools left and right. A particularly visceral scene shows Selene charging down a hallway at superhuman speed slitting half a dozen throats on the way. She escapes the facility and joins up with an underground group of vampires. The world has a sci-fi sheen to it, but it's not terribly overt. After the initial setup, the reel quickly spun into a rapidly-edited peek at some of the stunts and sequences, which look good. They saved the reveal of Selene's daughter, seen briefly huddling in a hallway, to the very end, and we didn't get a single peek at whatever the main enemy will look like.

Humans are a bigger part of the story, according to the directors. Don't think that this will mean any lessening of action, though. "I spend most of the movie fighting or being hit or shot at," said Beckinsale. The filmmakers also talked about the new animated shorts that will be on disc in the upcoming DVD box set of the series. When asked about future directions, creator Len Wiseman commented that "they're not going into space, that's for certain," but says he has plenty of concepts for future films.

Underworld: Awakening opens January 20, 2012.