“Legion” looks the biz. Although Dennis Quaid is in the film, Paul Bettany is the lead. Quaid actually had two films this Comic-Con, the other being “Pandorum.” Truthfully, I would have been surprised to see him at this event.

What’s it about? Basically a young woman (Adrianne Palicki) has in her womb the next savior. God who loses faith in humanity and unleashes his legion of angels to decimate the human population for the second time. The only remaining hope for humanity comes in the form  of Archangel Michael whom Bettany portrays

Who else is in it? Dennis Quaid, Jon Tenney, Tyrese Gibson, Lucas Black, Kate Walsh, Charles S. Dutton, Willa Holland, Kevin Duran, Adrianne Palicki

On the challenges of playing an angel Bettany says “It was a lot of fun. Scott came and pitched this movie to me and it was the greatest pitch I ever received. It was so slick his presentation, with computers. Wow, this sounds really fun and he said ‘we going to do angels but they’re going to be kitted out, tooled up with loads of weapons. So then I started going on the internet and looking up pictures of angels and their all tooled up with weapons actually. Armor, spears and swords so we didn’t actually stray that far from that image except we gave them guns. He’s Archangel Michael in fact, who was the first to fall down and worship and in our story he’s the last. The last who turned his back…because you know God has turned his back on mankind and Archangel Michael hasn’t lost faith.”

He asked whether the film is all action or are there some philosophical tones in the film and says “It’s going to be all action. There’s really nothing philosophical about it. The thing that they just played [referring to the footage prior to the roundtables], it was the first time I had seen any footage from it and I was absolutely bowled over. It looked so exciting, it really did.’

Prior to the roundtables, we were handed over some white t-shirts splattered in black in and quite a disturbing image of a guy with an elongated jaw. The shirt says “Frosty Treats.”

“He’s the ice cream man and the ice cream man is possessed…a lot of possessed people. He is an ice cream man but he’s not selling ice cream any more, he’s got sharp teeth and the ability to dislocate his jaw. It’s amazing and he’s so brilliant physically. His body dislocates and CG takes over and he can run like this sideways. It’s extraordinary.

Doug Jones plays this character. A well-suited actor known for his parts as Pan in Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” as well as Abe Sapien in the “Hellboy” series of films.

I ask how he comes into play and Bettany responds “There are possessed people from all walks of life and instead of a flood, this is what has been sent. The apocalypse is this endless stream of zombie-like possessed people.”

He’s asked about being the last hope for mankind and hilariously says “That’s a lot of pressure. Fuck it! I’ll step up. Listen we set out to make an absolutely rollercoaster, rip-roaring fun, shoot ‘em up, thriller. I finished that job then I went to play Charles Darwin. I did that for a lot of different reasons, that movie. This movie…I had never been in an action movie before and you know what? If I am in a similar sort of movie, I’m the bad guy. So it was really flattering and fun to be the hero of this film.”

Bettany talks about what the film looks like visually – “We wanted his silhouette to look like a sort of western…the length of the coats. Essentially, it’s Scott’s vision and Scott came to see me in New York with an incredibly clear vision and I think he felt pressure to try pitch to me this kind of small, arthouse movie and I was like ‘are you making a film with zombies in it? Because I really want to be in a film with zombies in it.’ I’ll get that fix somewhere else. I wanted to be in an action movie and I think it looks beautiful, the colors are extraordinary. For years we’ve been seeing a lot of blue films and a lot of green films and this absolutely Technicolor and really visually I think, quite stunning. I think you’ll really enjoy it.”