Throughout the seven years that Sons of Anarchy was on the air, the central M.C. got into all kinds of rowdy behavior that proved they were most definitely not men to be fucked with. And even though the actors clearly aren’t exactly like their fictional characters, I still wouldn’t want to be the person to swindle them. But the promoter for this past weekend’s Space City Comic-Con in Houston did just that, as Charlie Hunnam and other cast members were totally screwed over for their highly publicized panel, which never happened, and the cast reportedly got the cops called on them instead.
Usually the craziest thing you see at a Comic-Con involves someone’s elaborately constructed cosplay efforts, but former Sons of Anarchy actors like Kim Coates, Rusty Coones, Emilio Rivera, Ryan Hurst and more were at the center of a rare Con-troversy. (Somebody copyright that for me.) General Social Survey field reporter and journalist Ava Jade reported on the disappointing non-reunion in her blog, where she put together a general account of how things went down.
When Charlie Hunnam and the other cast members arrived at their hotel prior to the scheduled appearance, the credit card given to the hotel by the promoter was declined, which understandably ticked everyone off. Upon arriving at the convention itself, Hunnam “had it out with the promoter,” and soon left to go to a bank in order to cash the check he’d been given as payment for doing the panel. It might not surprise you now that the checking account in question had been closed, and that was the case for the entire cast’s payments. I'm thinking this was Hunnam's approach to that conversation.
And what happened when the cast members went to the promoter’s office to demand their money? He called the cops on them and allegedly said that he was being held hostage by them. A class act, this guy.
That’s not all, either. He apparently also tried to pay them with the pre-sale ticket money, which reportedly went into why ticket gouging and other problems had been plaguing potential attendees. It appears that the option to buy day passes was suspended so that people were forced to buy the far pricier VIP passes instead. Not that it helped consumers in the long run. And none of it was helped by the fact that no one in the cast and crew seemed to have been given the same times for the panels and photo ops.
It wasn’t even just the Sons of Anarchy cast that got duped by the Con. Apparently the AVI team that were working the panel were also promised to be paid ahead of time, which didn’t happen. And when they weren’t given the dough, they also backed out of the event.
Here’s what one hopeful member of the crowd got to witness for all of the time, money and effort that went into it.
A damned shame, to understate things. As huge fans of Sons of Anarchy, we’re obviously pumped that the upcoming spinoff is headed in the right direction, and that we’ll get to revisit the original characters for the upcoming comic book prequel. But it sucks that this completely botched experience will taint how some fans remember the flagship series.
