What we’ve learned from 2017 Comic-Con San Diego
More than 150,000 popculture fans converge on San Diego in the United States for Comic-Con every year, and every year the event offers the geek fraternity exclusives and teasers. Here are the key reveals from the legendary three-day nerd-fest that wrapped up yesterday.
Marvel Cinematic Universe
Thor has lost his invincible hammer and Black Panther shoulders the responsibility of being a new king. That was the word out of Marvel at the festival. During the Thor: Ragnarok panel that featured director Taika Waititi and stars Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston and Cate Blanchett, there was talk about how the Norse god has evolved, specifically as he has lost his power-wielding hammer, is trapped on a planet named Sakaar and has to fight in a gladiator contest with the Hulk.
“I’ve played this character five times now,” Hemsworth said. “I got a bit bored with myself and wanted to make something different.”
Comedy weaves through a trailer that shows Thor meeting the Hulk and filling him in on his status, saying: “I’m doing my own thing now, I’m not really hanging out with the Avengers anymore, it all got very corporate.”
As supervillain Hela (Blanchett) takes over Thor’s home planet of Asgard, he must recruit the help of the superheroes, including his mischievous brother Loki, to stop Hela and prevent Ragnarok – the end of the world.
Marvel also premiered footage from 2018’s Black Panther, in which Chadwick Boseman plays T’Challa, the new king of fictional African nation Wakanda, who is also a deadly superhero. “T’Challa is someone who got his power from the people around him and his history,” director Ryan Coogler said.
Marvel also announced that its upcoming female superhero standalone film Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson, will take place in the 1990s, before the events of 2008’s
Iron Man, the film that set Marvel’s subsequent franchise in motion. It also revealed new additions to its 2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp film, including Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne and Laurence Fishburne as Dr Bill Foster.
Star Trek
Trekkies got their first look at CBS’s Star Trek television reboot, Star Trek: Discovery, which focuses on the re-emergence of the Klingon Empire and their attack on several Starfleet ships. The trailer also gave fans a glimpse of Rainn Wilson’s Harry Mudd, an intergalactic conman who made several appearances in the original Star Trek series.
DC Comics
Not to be outdone by their Marvel rivals, DC Comics came to the party too, releasing new footage from the forthcoming Justice League film. All the old favourites were present, both on the panel and on screen. We already knew that Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman and Batman would be in the movie, but the new footage DC suggests the Green Lantern Corps will be making an appearance too ahead of a new Green Lantern film, due in 2020.
And Ben Affleck denied rumours of him taking the Batman cape off. “Let me be very clear – I am the luckiest guy in the world. I’m so thrilled to do it,” he said. “After two films, [Warner Bros bosses] Kevin Tsujihara, Sue Kroll and Toby Emmerich have said, ‘We want you to be our Batman’ – and I believe them.”
Ready Player One
Film veteran Steven Spielberg screened the first footage from Ready Player One, which is due in 2018, and looks like being a post-modern treat for fans of pop-culture.
Iconic figures such as Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddie Krueger, the Iron Giant and the DeLorean from the Spielberg-produced Back to the Future all make an appearance in the adaptation of Ernest Cline’s sci-fi novel about an 80s-obsessed teenager’s adventures in virtual reality.
On the small screen
Netflix was out also in force releasing trailers for their new content, which includes Marvel’s Defenders, (August), a second season of Stranger Things (October), and forthcoming Netflix Original movie Bright, written by Chronicle’s Max Landis, directed by Suicide Squad’s David Ayer and starring Will Smith.
HBO hosted a Game of Thrones panel and aired some new footage from the already underway seventh season, although they were careful to avoid any spoilers. They also aired a teaser for season two of Westworld and a five-minute trailer of season 8 of Walking Dead.
Check out the photo gallery at www.thenational.ae/artsculture and for more go to www.comic-con.org/cci
Chris Newbould