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| Stan Lee
Photo: Jeff Lewis |
Many of Hollywood’s biggest geeks came out to support Stan Lee, comics illustrator, and creator extraordinaire.
On Tuesday night, Chris Hardwick hosted a tribute to Stan Lee at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills.
Called “Extraordinary: Stan Lee,” the tribute was broadcast into more than 150 movie theaters across the country. The two-hour program mixed live appearances with video tributes and animated segments that told the story of Lee’s career. Stan Lee’s humor and quick wit shined brightly throughout the night as audio problems plagued the event. At one point in the night, Lee ordered Hardwick to “go backstage and find three microphones that work” to laughter from the crowd.
The prolific producer and creator was presented with special edition Stan Lee sneakers and a custom jacket with his name on it that Lee joked at “would come in handy if he ever got amnesia.”
Some of the people paying tribute via video were the Hulk Mark Ruffalo, Kaley Cuoco, J.K. Simmons, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn.
Coming out to visit Stan in person were: TomBergeron (Dancing with the Stars), Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk), Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2), Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2), Alan Tudyk (Star Wars: Rogue One), musician/producer RZA (Blade Trinity), director Jon Schnepp (The Death of ‘Superman Lives’: What Happened?), Peter Shinkoda(Marvel’s Daredevil), Kelly Hu (X2: X-Men United), director Morgan Spurlock (Super-Size Me), Todd McFarlane(Amazing Spider-Man), Andy Signore (Screen Junkies), writer Marv Wolfman (Crisis on Infinite Earths), producer Michael Uslan (Batman), director David Yarovesky (Guardians Inferno), producer/director Kenneth Johnson (The Incredible Hulk), Hal Sparks (Queer as Folk), Disney Imagineer Ted Robledo (Iron Man Experience).
Throughout the night, animated shorts of Stan’s career and the people he’s met in his life were shown with the guest narrating before being introduced.
The most memorable of the shorts was RZA’s onstage narration of a piece that Lee wrote regarding the introduction of The Black Panther, written in 1968 but incredibly relevant today given recent events.
Check out a bit of the video below (tap on full screen for better viewing of the video):
