Marvel Laying Low at the San Diego Comic-Con This Year
Marvel is going into hiding at Comic-Con this year. After speculation of another big show like last year, where they announced Avengers: Doomsday as the replacement for The Kang Dynasty, the return of the Russo Brothers to direct it and Avengers: Secret Wars, and Robert Downey Jr. as the actor who would play Doctor Doom, Variety reports that Marvel will not have a big presence at the 2025 San Diego Comic-Con. They will not have a Hall H presentation, which are the prestige showcases in the San Diego Convention Center’s biggest auditorium, but rather limit their presence to some panels based on their comics and video games, as well as a booth for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which will be released the same weekend that Comic-Con is held. But there will be nothing for Avengers: Doomsday or even Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
What a humiliation. I know Marvel has skipped Comic-Con before (as recently as 2023), but this one comes amid so much turmoil that it’s impossible to see it as anything but another black eye for a bruised and battered studio running out of saliva as it licks its wounds. Per Variety, the official reason for Marvel’s Comic-Con absence is that they don’t want to drag any of their actors away from the Doomsday set in London, particularly as the film has been delayed and can’t afford to stop shooting for frivolities like this. (I would’ve thought the delay would give them more time, perhaps as someone somewhere writes an actual script for the movie that officially started filming a month ago.) That sounds like an excuse to me; I get the cast not being able to fly to San Diego, but they could have easily had a few of the bigger names shoot a video to show fans in Hall H. These are people who cheered for Natalie Portman holding Mjolnir; they’d go nuts for a two-minute reel of Chris Hemsworth dressed as Thor and palling around with Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord at the craft services table while Ian McKellan shakes his head and whips around his Magneto cape, or something to that effect. They could have even used it as a means of revealing an unannounced cast member, like Hugh Jackman or Halle Berry. And The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which will be opening that same weekend, gets a booth!? That’s it? They could hype up a movie that will be having its opening weekend at that very moment, and they’re punting?
We all know why Marvel is skipping Comic-Con this year. It’s the same reason they delayed Doomsday and Secret Wars and the same reason why they’re holding secret test screenings for Fantastic Four. They know they’re unpopular right now, that Fantastic Four is probably going to be another bomb, that they probably still have no idea what Doomsday will be (I’ve seen reports of them retooling it, particularly in the characters they choose to highlight), and that they’ve apparently even managed to piss off Bob Iger, who greatly contributed to the mess Marvel made of itself. With Spider-Man: Brand New Day scheduled to begin production in August, they’ve got nothing that will excite anyone right now, so they’re laying low and hoping nobody notices. This also suggests to me that Fantastic Four is essentially being written off, another instance of a movie that was supposed to be “the one that turns things around” turning into just another “Okay, this one kind of sucks, but wait till next time!” Can you imagine if James Gunn and Peter Safran have a huge DC presentation in Hall H with Superman, maybe the introduction of their new Batman or Wonder Woman, and a bunch of other stuff to show off? (Recently, some outlets were reporting that the DC presence at Comic-Con would be limited to Peacemaker, but Gunn clarified that he had misspoken and was actually talking about CCXP in Mexico.) Marvel is imploding in real-time, and I’d be sad if they didn’t do it to themselves.
Let us know what you think about Marvel skipping the 2025 San Diego Comic-Con in the comments!
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