Missing in Action at Comic Con 2015

So San Diego Comic Con has drawn to a close for another year. Every year the gap between comic material, cinematic fanfaring, gaming and TV narrows as the colossal convention reasserts its position as one of the most important events on the entertainment industry calendar. We got our first trailers for Suicide Squad, Deadpool and X-Men Apocalypse, an extensive look at Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak, a new trailer for Batman v Superman, another for the new season of The Walking Dead, some light shed on the 7th season of Archer and a gloriously jam-packed Star Wars panel.

It was a good year, but what was missing from the pile? The Marvel cinematic team were entirely absent from proceedings as they had always planned to be, preferring to save all their dark secrets for a time when they’ve got a bit more to show off. Some other franchise titles suffered the same fate and it doesn’t mean they aren’t still happening, it usually means that not enough has happened yet for it to be worthy of any panel time. It’s totally understandable, but it’s still worth shedding some light on a few upcoming projects which deserve just as much hype as everything that actually made it to the convention centre.

 

Godzilla 2

According to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens panel, Gareth Edwards is due to start shooting his spin off, Rouge One, within the next couple of weeks. This is understandably going to eat up a fair amount of his time and forestall any real progress on the sequel to the 2014 Godzilla reboot. While the film got something of a lukewarm reception, it easily fared well enough at the box office to warrant a second round and at last year’s convention Legendary Pictures revealed that the next film would be bringing Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah into the mix. The only shred of information we were offered this time around came when Dead Central pinned down Legendary’s very own Barnaby Legg (creator of the SDCC 2013 ‘Godzilla Experience’) and asked him if this film would offer Godzilla more screen time, something which bothered a lot of fans. “Oh, don’t worry. We know.” Came his reply. “All I can say is stay tuned! You’re going to get exactly what you’re hoping for.”

The film is provisionally slated for a June 2018 release, so it would be fair to suggest that SDCC 2016 will have a bit more on the table. Bryan Cranston also confirmed that his character will indeed still be dead in the second film.

 

American Gods

The Bryan Fuller-led TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s sprawling modern mythical epic has been in the running for quite a while now. It went in development last year and now Starz have given it the straight-to-series order, with Fuller on writing, Gotham producer Michael Green as showrunner and Gaiman taking on executive producing duties (among other things). With Hannibal tragically axed and looking less and less likely to find rescue, Fuller’s diary is suddenly looking a lot lighter. The show will follow Shadow, an ex-convict who is recruited by the mercurial Mr. Wednesday for a shady job which brings him into a world where myth, religion and reality all blend. It’s a massive undertaking and the only nuggets of information to have surface are a few casting suggestions (Dwayne Johnson being the foremost) and some rather lovely concept art. Starz held a panel at SDCC but were far more concerned with showing off their other, finished new show – Ash vs. Evil Dead.

 

Ghostbusters

#whoyougonnacall pic.twitter.com/hnrSjhCqSl

— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) July 10, 2015

Now this one really is a head-scratcher. It does make a certain amount of sense that Sony would abstain from SDCC this year, given that their latest Spider-Man redux is nowhere near far enough into pre-production for showcasing to be an option. Ghostbusters on the other hand has just started shooting and director Paul Feig recently tweeted the first official image of the cast in costume. You might argue that films that are in production don’t really have any time for SDCC but in many cases they do turn up. X-Men Apocalypse has been shooting for a few months and got a fair amount of attention during the 20th Century Fox panel. This new version of everyone’s favourite Bill Murray movie (if you say it isn’t you’re wrong and if you even start to say Lost in Translation I will slice you) features an all female GBing team. The busters in question are played by Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Kristin Wiig. All else we know is that Slimer will appear, Dan Aykroyd might, Murray won’t and that the receptionist is being played by Chris Hemsworth. Hopefully he won’t be doing an impression of Annie Potts in the original though. That would be weird.

 

George R.R. Martin

 

Alright, I realise that George R.R. Martin isn’t a project (unless there’s some bizarre biopic in the works that I don’t know about), but his absence from SDCC this year was noted. This doesn’t reflect in any way on the progress of Game of Thrones as it moves into its 6th season (there was a panel, it was good) but it is indicative of other, more exciting news. It means he’s too busy working on the latest book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. Fans had to wait an agonising 5 years between A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons and it’s now been almost exactly 4 years since that was published. The delay has been softened somewhat by the existence of the TV show – which also accounts for it on some level – but now it’s looking like Martin is really knuckling down to get The Winds of Winter ready to come out. It’s obviously impossible to say how far he’s already gotten on when he’ll be finished, but hype for the next book is so massive that even news that he’s actively working on it is extremely encouraging. So Mr. Martin, I urge you to stay at home and absent from press and fan events for as long as it takes.