By George, that’s how to make an entrance!
George Clooney beamed into the Jacob K. Javits Center Thursday morning to surprise the geeks at the New York Comic Con at a panel for his upcoming film, “Tomorrowland.”
The Hollywood heavyweight was not expected to be anywhere close to the main stage at the Javits just 12 days after his star-studded Venice wedding to Amal Alamuddin.
“It is not lost on me that I’m spending my honeymoon at Comic Con,” he quipped after the raucous ovation subsided.
But Clooney made the clandestine pilgrimage to promote his sci-fi adventure flick, which opens on May 22, 2015, alongside director Brad Bird and screenwriter Damon Lindelof and co-stars Britt Robertson and Hugh Laurie.
Clooney stole the show the minute he appeared behind Laurie as his British co-star jokingly ranted that “I’m glad he’s not here because it frees me up to say some things about George Clooney.
“Well, there’s been no mention of the drinking,” Laurie continued with his back towards the advancing Clooney. “There’s been no mention of the shouting. The ceaseless shouting. Lying about his age. He’s 75…”
“Thank you, Hugh,” Clooney deadpanned.
Riffing off Lindelof and Bird’s attempts to maintain secrecy surrounding the storyline of “Tomorrowland” — about a 17-year-old girl (Robertson) who stumbles on a high-tech pin that gives her a glimpse into a futuristic utopia — Clooney announced that “everyone dies at the end.”
He also chided his screenwriter and director for just showing a teaser trailer from the film that’s that had one scene of him in it. “I’m so barely in the teaser. I don’t want to say anything but I’m a big star,” said Clooney, who plays a withdrawn inventor named Frank Walker.
So they rolled a first look action scene involving Clooney and Robertson’s characters dispatching a squad of robotic soldiers that break into Walker’s farmhouse despite its high tech fortifications. Clooney’s visit was so top secret that it shocked even convention organizers who weren’t informed of the A-lister’s cameo until the last minute.
“He’s not exactly incognito, we knew that he’d probably get sighted in New York and once he was maybe people would be able to do the math,” Lindelof told The News of the massive effort to keep the secret.
“We knew that Comic Con was so close to his honeymoon, so we didn’t think he’d do it, but he said, ‘How could I help?’ Which was awesome.”
Landing the biggest star in Hollywood is a huge coup for the upstart New York Comic Con, in just its ninth year, as it tries to rival the granddaddy of all nerdfests, San Diego Comic Con, which regular attracts big-name actors and actresses to promote just about every major super hero or sci-fi flick.
“On top of my honeymoon it is my first Comic Con,” Clooney told the audience.
“Since my Batman I think I was disinvited to Comic Con for 20 years,” he quipped, referring to his poorly received stint as a superhero in the 1997 “Batman & Robin.”
“I met Adam West back there and I said, “Hey I’m really sorry.”
With Drew Taylor and Matthew Reitman
