Every year for a while now Comic-Con has become a pretty huge event for blockbuster movies. The flood of superhero and comic properties seemed to have found the perfect venue to showcase early footage to fans for feedback, and in the process kind of eclipsed much of the “comic” portion of the event.
But things have changed in a big way for this year’s Comic-Con, as we reported a few weeks back. At that point Warner Bros, Dreamworks and Disney said they weren’t showing anything major and now Marvel Studios has been added to that list as well. That means no Dark Knight, no Man of Steel and no Avengers. A far cry from last year when the entire Avengers cast assembled for the first time on stage, which was more or less the highlight of the whole event.
So what’s changed? In short, studios have been burned by overly appreciate fans recently. Last year, films like SUCKER PUNCH and SCOTT PILGRIM screened to much love from the crowds. Subsequently, millions were poured into marketing for the films which both turned out to be duds. SUCKER PUNCH was plain old fashioned awful, and while SCOTT PILGRIM was beloved by most who saw it, not many did, and ticket sales were abysmal, making it one of the biggest bombs of the year. TRON LEGACY achieved similar high praise, and did somewhat better at the box office, but it was far from a monster hit as the studio expected it to be.
Still though, it seems strange to pull giant franchises like this completely off the table from an event that’s more or less devoted to their existence. It’s hard to imagine anything from Batman, Superman or the Avengers wouldn’t be met with much enthusiasm, and all those films have yet to show anything major to the public. Perhaps they all have nothing to show as they’re too early in the process? But that seems like either an awfully big coincidence, or poor planning as SDCC is definitely the time to premiere even a brief bit of footage to get the fanbases riled up. It’s impossible for films this high profile to be SCOTT PILGRIM bombs, so I don’t quite understand the thought process here.
There will be some things still to see, as despite Marvel’s absence, something will be shown for THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. TIN TIN should also be there, as will COWBOYS AND ALIENS, despite the fact it’s coming out a few weeks later. And don’t forget about GHOST RIDER 2 and BREAKING DAWN! Yeah, alright, so it’s kind of going to suck.
What’s up movie studios? Why are you snubbing your most devoted fans?