Studios cancel Comic-Con

The Future. Despite coming back last year with a successful masked-and-vaccinated event, this year’s San Diego Comic-Con looks to be an empty affair. Almost none of the studios are planning to show up and show off their coming blockbusters. Once heralded as a launching-off point for tentpoles, studios may have shifted during COVID to their own fan events to act as marquee marketing events.

Fractured fanbases
It looks like Hollywood will be a no-show at Comic-Con this year.

• Although the event is set to kick off July 19th, most Hollywood studios, including Disney, Netflix, Universal, and Sony, are all sitting out.
• The reason? A potential actors strike (on top of the current writers strike) would make it impossible for them to draw interest to panels and presentations. We’ll know June 30th.
• Variety does report that the studios may still plan certain “activations and promotional stunts” outside of the San Diego Convention Center to market upcoming movies.

All of this spells bad news for Comic-Con International, the non-profit organization that puts on SDCC. But the organization says the show will go on despite the lack of A-list (or almost any) talent.

Guess we’ll see what those schedules look like on July 5th.