Summer 2014 in Brighton. I remember boarding the B-train in my hellish red boots that often blister my toes. I looked up the casting agency on my phone. It was going to be a bit of walk from the Harvard St. stop. Perusing through brownstones and navigating towards the winding streets, we eventually found the casting agency. My head was already reeling from the humid Boston summer. However, we made it just in time for free donuts and coffee. The line outside the casting building was comparable to a convention. Many have answered the advertisement on social media – a call for cosplayers for a comic con scene in Ted 2. Boston Comic Con would be in a few days and it would make sense to film locals at Boston Comic Con that very next week. I got a lot praise for wearing Super Sailor Moon that day.
We went inside the tiny casting building. We took a few photos for reference and had then left. I do recall a variety of fandom being present at the casting. Various Marvel and DC, including our buddy Minh in his Pikachu hoodie. We were hoping to get call backs for this non-union gig. I actually did get a call from the agency a few days later asking who owns the intellectual property rights towards Sailor Moon. I kindly responded with Toei, but I could also put them in touch with Viz Media if they need to ask permission. The call had a simple question and that was that. A few days later, another message on social media floated around that Ted 2 was still going forward with the comic con scene and still wanted cosplayers, but they had to be from certain intellectual properties. Most of these were from NBC / Universal and Fox. Ergo, that eliminated my chance at being selected. No worries, I had a day job at the time, but it would have been nice to wear Sailor Moon. I let the whole thing slide. I understand that in the entertainment business, people change their minds all the time. However, I felt bad for the people who wasted a Saturday morning to get dressed up.
Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to pop in Ted 2 because I had nothing else better to do. I saw the first Ted movie. It’s not my type of comedy, but I do like watching anything with Boston in the background. I wanted to see how the comic con scene would play out. After studying a few scenes in the third act, I figured this is what had happened.
In Ted 2, you have the exterior of Javits. While I assumed this would take place at Boston Comic Con because of the timing of the casting and shooting, it looked like they wanted to change locations to New York Comic Con.
Hah, if only tickets ARE available on the weekend of. Let me tell you my 2013 horror story…
Additionally, it looked like all convention interior scenes took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
If you’ve attended Anime Expo, Comikaze, etc, you would recognize this area as the entrance to West Hall.
I think this is where the Anime Expo karaoke rooms are held.
The interior is “dressed” to look like New York Comic Con. Unfortunately, LA does not have a Midtown Comics…
Wait a second…
When our copy editor and I watched this last act of the movie, we had to pause and have a discussion about the intellectual property being represented in this scene. This is one of the stronger scenes of Ted 2 (though Phineas and Ferb did it better), we just had to scratch our head on what lead to some last minute decisions. Likewise, we understand that entertainment makes some last minute choices and unfortunately, it is what it is if it waste’s people’s time. The purpose of this post is to let curious minds know what had happened and only what we can speculate.
What I did like about the Ted movies is that it’s a Boston story. It would have been nice if Boston / New England cosplayers were being used in the last scene as originally intended. However, logistics and executive decisions do happen…