Why do studios bring their biggest and best franchises to Comic-Con? What purpose does it serve? What do they get out of it? These are questions I've often asked as we've seen one supposed "Comic-Con favorite" after another fail (lookin' at you Astro Boy and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World!), while the expected hits remained hits. Marvel doesn't need a Hall H appearance at Comic-Con to push their next Avengers movie. It's admittedly awesome when they do, but it doesn't really help them. Every now and then you get a film like Mad Max: Fury Road which debuted footage at Comic-Con last year and took off from there. But that's rare. And now this year we're seeing a number of high-profile studios deciding it's not really worth it.
Variety confirms last week's report that Marvel won't be having their usual Hall H panel next month, while adding that Sony and Paramount won't be at Comic-Con either. Sony hasn't been there since they were pushing Robocop a couple of years ago, and they really don't have anything major to promote this time. Imagine if they hadn't struck that Spider-Man deal with Marvel, though! We'd be talking about hype for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 or Sinister Six or Venom or whatever. Now we get nothin'. As for Paramount, they don't have anything major coming up, anyway. All of the studios insist this has nothing to do with shunning Comic-Con as a spokesperson says, "It wasn’t a knock against Comic-Con, the film cycles just didn’t allow it."
That may be true, but all of them could have shown something if they wanted to. Marvel doesn't have any Captain America: Civil War footage at this point? And what about maybe just holding a panel to chat with fans?
All of this leaves open the door for Warner Bros. to take Hall H by storm. Their various TV shows will have a much larger presence, and of course Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will be taking center stage in the very place it was first revealed. And now Jesse Eisenberg, who will be playing Lex Luthor, has confirmed to Collider that he will be on hand....
“I’ll be there…I think I’m there for the hour I’m on the stage.”
Chances are he'll be joined by Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, and Gal Gadot, who were all there briefly last year. We may even see the cast of Suicide Squad show up, hopefully bringing with them some footage.
We can still expect The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and more to command some extremely large crowds. Comic-Con begins July 9th and runs through July 12th. Will you be there? If so, what are you most excited for?
