Coming to terms with the reality of Hall H

7 AUGUST 2016

Now that we've had a few weeks for our San Diego Comic-Con experience to settle inside us, some of our perceptions have probably shifted a bit. Decisions like: how excited are we really for that new show or upcoming movie? Just how good, or mediocre, was that much-anticipated new graphic novel? How often have we returned to admire our most hard-won exclusive, or did we put it in a display case and forget about it?

(What doesn't get questioned as much: if we're going back in 2017. Most attendees just assume they should, even if they complained to no end about the lines and lotteries and raw deal they got in the Exhibit Hall. If that's you, consider going to another Con - but that's for another post, coming soon.)

Studios and the media are changing their perceptions too: namely of us and our box office power. Are we worth marketing to? How come we act so excited over Hall H trailers for movies that go on to tank at the box office? Why aren't we showing up and bringing all our friends?

Screen Crush noticed that Hall H isn't a surefire guarantee of big ticket sales and put together the above infographic to illustrate this reality. One number that's missing: the fewer than 7,000 seats in that auditorium. It seems a bit unfair to use the small number of Hall H viewers as some kind of cinematic bellweather - especially since, let's face it, we're an enthusiastic bunch who are then further hyped up just being at SDCC and will cheer for pretty much anything. You can't even count a full house as indicating a high level of interest in something, since any given panel probably contains attendees waiting for the panels that come after it.

In that light, it's kind of irritating that anyone even bothered to correlate box office draws with Hall H presence. Are attendees expected to have some kind of social media superpowers that can make every movie a hit? Regardless, it's true that the ensuing dismal performance of some Hall H movies has led some studios to back off. As Screen Crush says: "That's not exactly the sort of success that inspires movie studios to spend thousands of dollars on filmmaker accommodations and specially prepared trailers on top of all the money for booths, staff and the assorted swag Comic-Con attendees have come to expect as part of the San Diego experience." In other words, Hollywood is the date who took us to a fancy dinner and then got mad because we didn't put out.

This article also seems to think SDCC has 160,000 attendees so take its final point with a grain of salt, but here it is: a prediction that more and more studios will host their own events like Star Wars Celebration and D23. To which I say, possibly, but those events are hugely expensive compared to a Hall H panel - so no, I don't think Hall H and Hollywood are breaking up for good. And it's not like Comic-Con is the only place where TV makes a better showing than movies. It's been a few years now that everyone's noticed we're in a golden age of television and ongoing stories get better traction with social media and fan loyalty. So if Hollywood wants to boost their box office, maybe they should stop blaming poor marketing decisions and make better movies.

We may be facing a Foxless Comic-Con

28 APRIL 2016



Remember last year's furor over Marvel "skipping" San Diego Comic-Con? (For those of you who are new to our ways: when people speak of a brand sitting out or skipping SDCC, they're usually referring to its big splashy Hollywood panels, not comics and action figures, etc.)

Well, now Fox is allegedly too delicate to come join us this summer and the reason is piracy.  "The studio feels it cannot prevent the piracy of custom trailers and exclusive footage routinely screened for fans in attendance." No, not that! Why, the very idea of a Hall H trailer making its way onto YouTube.

So that's the problem; studios are outraged by their "carefully prepared" SDCC trailers leaking into the public, as happened with Suicide Squad and Deadpool. And CCI is disappointed too; David Glanzer says, "This leak not only violates the trust of Comic-Con and the studios but each of the attendees who respect the bond we have long held." Raise your hand if you feel violated.

I guess we'll just see about all of this. With SDCC coming up fast, studio panel and marketing plans are indeed solidifying so we should have a firmer idea soon of who will and won't dazzle us. (Rumor has it Disney will be gone too or at least scale back.) The Fox panel is always hotly anticipated and I know plenty of attendees will be bummed at its absence. Smaller plans will still proceed, it sounds like, but if you were yearning to see 131 seconds of Assassin's Creed footage, you may be out of luck. No word yet on if you'll be able to bounce around its huge obstacle course again.

Roger Corman documentary will premiere at SDCC

21 MAY 2015

 

Do you love low-budget creature features? Movies like "She Gods of Shark Reef" and "Night of the Blood Beast" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches"?  If so, you have excellent taste in cinema - and you may have occasionally wondered whatever happened to B-movie god Roger Corman's lost "Fantastic Four" film.

Well, now you can find out. A highly anticipated documentary called "DOOMED: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four" will premiere at Comic-Con to "shed light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the legendary cult classic." Shiver.

It will screen as part of the SDCC International Independent Film Festival, not as its own panel. That schedule hasn't been released yet but we do know that Executive Producer Mark Sikes and editor/director Marty Langford will be present to introduce the film.

For people who only know Roger Corman from his recent Syfy movies like "Sharktopus" or "Dinocroc Vs. Supergator," this should be a fascinating look at both obscure Marvel lore and Roger's colorful Hollywood history. No, it probably won't tantalize as many people as the Back to the Future documentary - but for a certain segment of attendees, it's the movie equivalent of being handed a basket of kittens.

 

TechCrunch says Hall H outranks the Oscars

1 MARCH 2015

In the category of "weird comparisons that don't really make sense," someone at TechCrunch noticed that Comic-Con is popular and concluded that therefore the Oscars were meaningless. The tenuous connection here: Open Registration happened on the same weekend as the Academy Awards. Maybe in a few weeks we'll have someone drawing conclusions about the housing market based on Hotel Day.

Because I'm a high priestess of hyperbole, I always have a soft spot for articles that say things like "that's the kind of demand that builds empires." Or refers to Open Reg (not the Con itself) as "the most important entertainment event of the year." But this article concludes that Open Reg selling out in an hour while the Oscar ratings slipped 18% means SDCC "is the industry event that reigns supreme" in Hollywood.

First of all, I feel obligated to say that all of the headlines trumpeting SDCC sold out in an hour! are making a false point, unless they're praising the current system's infrastructure. It's not like the speed of the sale points to a higher demand - an overwhelming number of attendees have been there all along, pouring into each sale at zero hour. If the system could process us in time, the sale would be over with in under a minute. You'd think an article on TechCrunch would be cognizant of that but it continues the theme of faster sales equaling rising demand.

And so it postulates that the Oscars' falling popularity means it's old and stale and of temporary influence while SDCC is vibrant and young with lasting impact. While it's true that Comic-Con hypes movies that are to come, as opposed to awarding movies that already happened, I'm not sure Hall H is the magical king-maker this article thinks; only 6-7K attendees see those panels and plenty of the movies end up flopping.

Nevertheless SDCC gets crowned "the most relevant platform from which to reach and influence the younger demographic pouring the majority of the money into the box office right now." Which, okay, compared to the Oscars, sure. I didn't watch the Oscars, so case in point. But is Comic-Con as influential as this article seems to think?

According to Forbes, no. "The notion that Comic Con is an important marketing tool in-and-of-itself is somewhat of a falsehood, as the success or failure of the various films will depend on the audiences who are made aware of and become interested in said films through more traditional advertising methods." This backs up the various blowback that started happening around 2012, when studios realized the ROI on SDCC marketing just wasn't what it was cracked up to be.

Let me be clear. I don't want the Hollywood aspect to necessarily be dialed back. But I also don't want inflamed ideas of Comic-Con influence to start circulating - because that's just going to bring even more non-geek shows and movies pushing their way into the scheduling, while convincing new attendees that SDCC is some kind of giant movie star mingle.

And if studios really want to boost their Comic-Con marketing? They should bring us more free t-shirts and good swag. All of that has really dried up in recent years.

Hollywood predictions: San Diego Comic-Con 2015

2 JANUARY 2015

If you're one of the SDCC attendees grousing about the Hollywood presence, go ahead and skip this post. You can stay pure and self-righteous over by the Mile High Comics booth, pawing through back issues. (I'm not being glib - give Mile High your support if you can.) But for those of you who are excited about all of the big blockbusters coming to theatres this year, let's speculate on what we might see at Comic-Con.

Please note: the below is pure conjecture. I'm only listing movies that come out post-Con - no Avengers, Terminator or Jurassic World here.

 
The #1 pick - Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Can't you already feel the adrenaline? The cosplay, the action figures, the panels, the revelry. The repetitive jokes about feeling a great disturbance in the Force during the next badge sale.
 
Ant-Man comes out July 17 and Crimson Peak comes out in October. These have already made SDCC appearances but I'm sure the studios will flex their promotional chops. Ditto for Hunger Games, out in November.
 
The Fantastic Four reboot hits in August. No question here.
 
Thoughtful sci-fi tale The Martian comes out in November. I'm already planning to be at this panel, so don't put it in Hall H, Fox.
 
Jem and the Holograms is out in October. Panel-worthy? No doubt. Ditto Mission Impossible 5 and Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, out in December.
 
Pan comes out July 17, just a week after the Con. This is a live action film based on Peter Pan - as you no doubt were smart enough to guess, but I assumed it was about the hoofed and horned flute-playing god when I first saw the title. So if you're as literal as I am, there's your clarity.
 
Also on the live-action front:  Jungle Book comes out in October. I'm on the fence as to whether this would show up at SDCC, but I know the world will be a better place if Christopher Walken does Comic-Con.
 
Spectre, the next James Bond flick, probably won't be at SDCC but I may stand in my first autograph line ever if the beautiful Monica Belluci shows up.
 

 
 
Similarly, Everest probably won't be there either but you can never tell. Comic-Con attendees can definitely empathize with the tale of reaching goals against incredible odds. Maybe Universal will bring it.
 
Gangster movie Black Mass and Steven Spielberg's untitled Cold War movie may also seem atypical SDCC fare, but crime/war dramas have been creeping into the panel programming more and more in recent years. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see them.

Are you anticipating anything I didn't list?

ETA: People asked about Suicide Squad, Batman vs Superman and the Harry Potter movie, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. All of those come out in 2016, but we'll obviously see content for some of them.

Hollywood has spurned Comic Con

13 JUNE 2011

Not really, but that's what you would think from the rush of panicked articles spreading through the interwebs today.

The New York Times notes that Disney, Warner Bros., Dreamworks, the Weinsteins and possibly Marvel (please) are sitting out this summer's dance. ( MTV thinks Marvel will definitely be there.)  Newsarama says that's because any bad buzz generated at Comic Con is as lethal as good buzz is lucrative, and besides, all that glittery swag is expensive to produce. That's true; the recession has hit the marketing budgets of movie studios, too.

But mostly it's all getting blamed on poor Scott Pilgrim. Remember last summer's ridiculous banner unscrolling down the side of Hilton? That right there was the sign that expectations were way too high. Hollywood saw promoting to Comic Con nerds as shooting fish in a barrel, because of our rabid fan-mania (and, I suspect, our alleged lack of a social life.) They miscalculated. Twilight would have been Twilight without coming to San Diego, Scott Pilgrim's fan base was never going to look like The Dark Knight's and besides -  these days TV is the new Film. The most committed fan devotion these days goes to shows like True Blood, Lost, Game of Thrones, Fringe, The Walking Dead, and so on. Fans give their hearts to stories that continue, not one-shots; nerds love ongoing universes they can get lost in, whether those worlds look like Lord of the Rings or Star Trek. Movies rarely offer that and when they do, it's often a retconned version.

So what movies will be showcased this year? Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Cowboys and Aliens (again), Spider Man and - sorry - Breaking Dawn. Hall H will have the same lines as always, even if we don't get panels for The Dark Knight Rises and Superman. While some attendees will no doubt be disappointed, I don't think the studios' partial withdrawal is going to affect much. If anything, it will please the many attendees who feel the Con has become too Hollywood in recent years. It could even be a step back toward the years when the Con was less about celebrities and more about comics.