Eight Questions for This Year's San Diego Comic-Con
San Diego Comic-Con, that yearly haven of movie studios and eager fans, starts in earnest on Thursday. So will some burning questions for this year's con get answered?
This year's Comic-Con will have the requisite show put on by Marvel, as well as—in all likelihood—some competitive posturing from Warner Bros. thanks to their D.C. properties. But Variety's Marc Graser is selling this year's con to CBS News as the "the year of the smaller film," with high profile panels for The Giver and Daniel Radcliffe's Horns. After all, it doesn't look like Disney is going to share any Star Wars goodies.
Will Interstellar make an appearance?
Paramount hasn't really elaborated as to what films will be on display at their Thursday Hall H panel, which has led many to speculate as to whether Christopher Nolan will make his first Comic-Con appearance. Gregory Ellwood at HitFix wrote that the studio has been "weighing" whether or not the movie should make an appearance, with one concern being that the studio does not want to repeat Gravity's campaign path from San Diego to Oscar. Still, we can hold out out hope that Nolan shows and maybe gives us a better sense as to just what the hell is going on here.
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What will Marvel say about Ant-Man?
It feels a lot like Comic-Con is Marvel's world and we're just living in it, and there is plenty that the studio could drop when they take to Hall H Saturday evening. There will likely some Age of Ultron goodies teased, and folks like Variety and BuzzFeed have speculated as to whether the studio's president Kevin Feige will drop some information about who might be playing Doctor Strange. (Cumberbatch? Cumberbatch? He's at Comic-Con to promote, for some unknown reason, Penguins of Madagascar.)
But being lovers of controversy, we here at The Wire are interested to see what happens when Feige is barraged with questions about the recent Ant-Man hullabaloo. Director Edgar Wright—who had been working on the project since 2006—left the project in May, and now Bring it On director Peyton Reed is in the driver's seat. Wright's people are the people that frequent Comic Con, so this could get messy. Exciting!
Will we see any Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (oy, that name) footage?
Warner Bros. panel kicks off the Saturday morning festivities in Hall H, and while Jupiter Ascending, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies are the movies on the schedule, it seems highly unlikely that the studio would decide not to tease Batman v Superman and their DC plans. Let's hope it's more than a moody shot of a brooding Batfleck.
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How do people respond to new TV shows?
A bunch of TV series are getting screenings at Comic Con, but which will impress audiences most? Will it be Fox's Batman prequel Gotham? The CW's The Flash? NBC's Constantine? Fox's M. Night Shyamalan event series Wayward Pines? Personally, we are excited to hear information on The CW's iZombie from Veronica Mars' Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero Wright. (Though iZombie will apparently not screening in full due to cast changes.) It's not a screening, but Gotham will also have a zip line.
What sort of details will we get on fan-favorite shows?
Game of Thrones has a panel. So does Orphan Black. So does American Horror Story. So does The Walking Dead. So does, for the love of God, Community, which will get a chance to explain its move to Yahoo. Will the shows throw out any casting news? Any details on the upcoming seasons? Probably.
Will The Giver be any good?
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, there are no scheduled Hunger Games or Divergent panels this year, and that means that The Giver panel on Thursday will be "the only real fix for YA fans." (A Mockingjay trailer will debut during the event, though, even if there is no official panel.) Fans won't have to wait long after the panel to actually see the long-awaited adaptation of Lois Lowry's novel—it comes out next month—but perhaps the panel, which features Lowry herself, can assuage some fears. As Adam B. Vary wrote at BuzzFeed: "With a full hour dedicated to this one film at Comic-Con, there should be plenty of time for some extensive footage, and for fans to further grill the stars and filmmakers about what to expect." Taylor Swift is, disappointingly, not scheduled to attend.
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Will there be any word from Jurassic World or Terminator: Genesis?
There's no official word on whether these two installments in very old franchises will make an appearance, though Jurassic World could show up at Legendary's panel and Terminator could make a stop at Paramount's. Variety's Alexandra Cheney explained that "Paramount has remained very quiet about their panel, which leads us to believe 'Terminator: Genesis' is going to play a part." Jurassic World, meanwhile, has a special Comic-Con teaser poster, if nothing else.
How about Fantastic Four?
Fox doesn't have anything from their Fantastic Four reboot on the roster, but there are strong rumblings that the studio could trot out its cast as a surprise. Screenrant reported that an "insider" said that stars Jamie Bell, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, and Miles Teller will show up onstage. It won't be like when the entire Days of Future Past cast made an appearance, but it will do. (Even if the Fantastic Four don't all come out, Fox does have Let's Be Cops making an appearance, so all hope won't be lost.)
This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/07/questions-for-comic-con/374895/
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