The cast came out next, including Paul Bettany (Priest), Karl Urban (Black Hat), Stephen Moyer (Aaron), Cam Gigandet (Hicks), and Maggie Q (Priestess).
Animator Genndy Tartakovsky also joined the panel. He will be providing an animated opening for Priest. He told everyone that he ended up working with lots of former Disney animators and it was amusing showing them how violent he wanted the intro to be.
Though unfinished, Tartakovsky surprised the crowd by showing the entire animated opening.
The entire piece runs a couple of minutes and is entirely narrated. A voice explains that, since the beginning of time, man and vampires have fought. Vampires were stronger and faster, but man had the sun on their side.
“It was not enough,” says the narrator.
Moving through time, we see knights battling vampires and then WWI-era men in gas masks shooting flamethrowers.
Man, the voice explains, built walled cities protected by the church and lived inside for their safety. Soon they created their ultimate weapon, the Priests. Specially trained in the deadly arts, the Priests came close to wiping the Vampires out.
No longer having a need for them, the Priests were disbanded and reintegrated into society.
After the footage, Stewart explained that his Vampires have no eyes. One of the ideas they had was that, since they avoided sunlight, they evolved without them.
Maggie Q said that her character has a special lasso weapon and that she needed intensive training with the rope. The final question was a surprise appearance by her old track coach, who she was overjoyed to suddenly see at the mic.
Priest opens May 13th, 2011.
