Comic-Con 2022: The Biggest News, Trailers, and More

A Marvel exec gave this away earlier today in the tweet below, but the company confirmed at Comic-Con that Jonathan Majors will return as Kang in the upcoming Ant-Man sequel. This is an unfettered good, although it’s going to be …. fun? … seeing if Marvel can keep its time travel and multiverse shenanigans spinning in a cohesive way through its next phase. 

Also, while Marvel’s not sharing the trailer publicly yet, reports have it that MODOK will make an appearance. Yes, MODOK.

Among the pleasant surprises of Marvel’s SDCC panel is not only the return of Daredevil—originally a Netflix property—and stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, but the fact that it’s being given 18 whole episodes to spool out a narrative. Figures that the man without fear would be the one brave enough to break out of the limited-run constraints that have taken over Disney+.

To kick off Marvel’s headlining panel at Comic Con, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige just announced the projected release dates of a whole lot of highly anticipated titles. Which you shall have here in list form!

Secret Invasion: Spring 2023 on Disney+
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Summer 2023 in theaters
Echo: Summer 2023 on Disney+
Loki (season 2): Summer 2023 on Disney+
Blade: November 3, 2023 in theaters
Ironheart: Fall 2023 on Disney+
Agatha: Coven of Chaos: Winter 2023/24 on Disney+
Captain America: New World Order: May 3, 2024 in theaters
Daredevil Born Again: Spring 2024 on Disney+
Thunderbolts: July 26, 2024 in theaters.

Phew! Basically keeping up with Marvel properties is going to be a full-time job, unless you choose to stick with just Blade, which would be entirely sensible.

We’re only a few weeks out from the Netflix adaptation of the classic Neil Gaiman comic. Starring Tom Sturridge as Dream, the series promises to hew closely to Gaiman’s original vision. 

It’s taken decades to get to this point, but the results look promising so far; the trailer seems tonally on-point, and the cast feels equally convincing. The 10-episode run premieres on Netflix on August 5. 

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was always ahead of its time—and stuck in the past. 

The first novel in her Vampire Chronicles, Interview, came out in 1976. Even the original film adaptation, released in 1994, beat out the Twilight/True Blood vampire boom by about a decade. And even though that adaptation was well-done (there are many flaws, but it’s got something), it still predated the every-genre-book-series-gets-5-seasons TV craze by too many years for Rice’s work to really get the serialized storytelling treatment. And none of those versions ever really grappled with the fact that one of the main protagonists is a slaveowner. 

Now, its latest adaptation is looking to get it right.

Thanks to AMC, Rice's novel is getting a new treatment, with Sam Reid playing the vampire Lestat and Game of Thrones’ Grey Worm, Jacob Anderson, starring as Lestat’s reluctant protege/plaything Louis. Based on the casting, and the trailer shown at Comic-Con this weekend, this new show aims to modernize the telling—and correct some of the more troubling aspects of its source material.

Rather than beginning in 1791, the story starts in 1910. Instead of being a plantation owner, Louis, according to the trailer, “managed and operated a diversified portfolio of enterprises.” Claudia, although barely 5 years old in the book and played by a preteen Kirsten Dunst in the movie, is now a teenager (played by Bailey Bass). The show, however, is still set in New Orleans and still features Lestat hunting Louis to be his companion, though this version does seem to be a little more overt about the queer romance between the two—even if Louis remains as conflicted as ever about laying down with the devil.

"We tried to stay as true to the spirit of the book as possible, but it's very much a modern interpretation,” executive producer Mark Johnson told Entertainment Weekly this weekend. “In many ways, our show is truer to the book than the movie was, which is ironic because Anne Rice herself wrote the screenplay to the movie."

Will they pull off modernizing a story while also making stellar prestige TV? You’ll know the answer when Interview with the Vampire hits AMC on October 10.

For those of you still hooked on that Jason Mamoa show on Apple TV+, here you go! 

Star Trek: Picard, which follows the later years of USS Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart)’s life, has already featured some pretty big cameos (remember when Whoopi came back?). But this? This is something different.

In a new trailer teasing the show’s third and final season, the Paramount+ show teases the return of many of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s most beloved characters. Like who? Well, like LeVar Burton’s Geordi La Forge, for one. Also Michael Dorn as Worf, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, Jonathan Frakes as William Riker, and Gates McFadden and Beverly Crusher.

The new season is set to premiere next year. Watch the new trailer, which premiered Saturday at Comic-Con, below.

On Wednesday, just as Comic-Con was about to begin, The Hollywood Reporter published a large feature on the forthcoming Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon. In it, actor Steve Toussaint, who plays Corlys Velaryon, spoke about some of the backlash he received from fans when he became the first Black actor given a lead Thrones role, saying he didn’t realize his casting was a big deal “until I was racially abused on social media.”

On Saturday, he addressed the issue during the House of the Dragon panel at Comic-Con. “There are people outside who find it a little hard to stomach that someone who looks like me would play this part,” he said, “but that’s an issue they have to deal with and I don’t have to.” The crowd immediately cheered his response.

What’s happened to Toussaint sounds eerily similar to what happened to Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram earlier this year, and what’s happened in fandom for a long time now. Fans, for whatever not-real reason, get upset about a actor of color being cast in a genre show and decide to share their feelings on the internet—usually in hurtful ways in an actor’s DMs. But, as Toussaint pointed out to The Hollywood Reporter, what they don’t seem to realize is that often the diversity is in the source material already and even a fantasy world like Thrones’ “still has to reflect a world.”

“I love Game of Thrones,” he told THR, “but my only caveat was, ‘Where’s everybody else in this world?’ Because it’s a diverse world Martin has created if you look [beyond Westeros], and I think this show comes closer to that.”

House of the Dragon hits HBO on August 21.

After several years and a lot of hand-wringing, HBO is finally ready to answer one crucial question: Does anyone really want more Game of Thrones?

Considering the series’ rampant popularity, it might seem obvious that there’s demand for more. Then again, the show’s final season wasn’t what anyone would call beloved, so it could also be a sleeping dog best left laying. And yet, here’s HBO, ensconced in Hall H, ready to sell the masses on House of the Dragon.

And sell, they did. HBO brought most of the cast to Hall H along with showrunner Ryan Condal and George R.R. Martin himself to get fans amped about the idea of returning to Westeros. They also brought promises of big dragons, the best dragons.

For those that don’t know, the show—based on Martin’s Fire & Blood—is set two centuries before the period of the original series and follows the rise of House Targaryen, It doesn’t have original showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff but it does have Matt Smith (in a bad wig, which he seems to hate) playing Prince Daemon Targaryen) and Paddy Considine (also in a bad wig) as King Viserys Targaryen. (Apparently his mom was his inspiration.)

“It delves into the history of the Targaryen dynasty,” Condal told the crowd in Hall H. That’s something that we hear about in A Song of Ice and Fire, in the pages of the book, and the original series, Game of Thrones, but we never get a real sense of it. So, this series begins at the absolute pinnacle of the dynasty—the height of power and wealth and influence. They have the most dragons they’ll ever have. It’s just before the bloom starts to come off the rose.”

If only that had been the point at which HBO had ended Game of Thrones.

House of the Dragon premieres August 21.

During the movie's panel at Comic-Con, Warner Bros. released some new footage of Black Adam. Watch it below. 

For years the Warner Bros. panel at Comic-Con was a highlight of the show. The studio would wrap Hall H in video screens and play long teasers of their upcoming offerings. On Saturday, they returned, determined not to disappoint. And when you’re looking for showmanship, you turn to The Rock.

Dwayne Johnson graced the stage during Saturday’s panel to promote Black Adam, the upcoming DC film where he plays the eponymous antihero, a man given the powers of Egyptian gods and imprisoned for 5,000 years. And, of course, he did it in costume. 

“Black Adam was here, that was some cool shit," he proclaimed from the stage in Hall H after doing a quick wardrobe change into what can only be described as the second-coolest shirt at Comic-Con this year (after Chris Pine's). “To watch Black Adam levitate and throw around lightning like he was passing out candy, I gotta tell you guys, this is truly a dream come true.” 

Black Adam, Johnson said, represents a “new era” of the DC Universe, and he praised director Jaume Collet-Serra for bringing it to life the way he has. One of the goals of the movie, he added, is figuring out what that means for the franchise. “What does it mean to build out the DC Universe with the Justice Society as well? So Jaume is just the perfect director for this.”

Black Adam hits theaters October 21.

Well, OK, he's not quite in therapy—he's talking to a pediatrician—but he's still going through some growing pains. 

In the new trailer for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, our titular hero (Zachary Levi) is learning how to be a hero and also growing up. 

“We got this really cool look into all of the kids getting their superpowers in the last movie, which was so fun,” Levi said while introducing the trailer at Comic-Con on Saturday. “Now, it's a couple years on and we've all been flying around doing various missions trying to help the city of Philadelphia and the world at large, but again we're all still learning how to do that. Lots of growing pains, not just in our own powers but also figuring out our own identity. … Super family comes with super problems—super drama.” 

In the trailer, Shazam comes face-to-face with Hespera (Helen Mirren), who believes “children stole the the power of all the gods” and is not taking it well. Will he survive? We'll find out when Shazam! Fury of the Gods hits theaters December 21.

You just know there’s no way Keanu Reeves is coming to Comic-Con and not talking about John Wick. Last night he did just that, dropping in on Collider’s Directors on Director’s panel, where Chad Stahelski was a guest, to show off new footage of John Wick 4. 

Watch it below. John Wick 4 hits theaters March 23, 2023.

We’ve already gone on the record saying Apple TV+’s For All Mankind gives some of the best sci-fi of its era. Now in its third season, the series, cocreated by Ronald D. Moore, imagines a much different outcome of the space race, one where the US isn’t the first nation to land on the moon. That, though, is only the beginning, and by subsequent seasons it goes to the surface of Mars.

Keep your spacesuits ready, For All Mankind’s off-world adventure isn’t stopping anytime soon. Apple TV+ confirmed a fourth season of the show at Friday afternoon’s Comic-Con panel. While only the fourth season is guaranteed, executive producers Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert spoke about their long-term vision for the show and potentially making seven seasons. Production on the next season is expected to start this August.

Ready to move on from all the nineties nostalgia? Season four of For All Mankind will blast forward another decade to the 2000s, keeping the show’s makeup department quite busy.

Do you ever watch Stranger Things and wish it had fewer dudes and monsters and more time travel? Then Paper Girls might just be what you’re looking for. 

Set in the late-1980s, this Amazon series—based on the graphic novels by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang—follows four girls who find themselves swept up in a war between time travelers while out on their morning paper routes. When they get thrust into the future, they must both find their way home and confront a militant group called the Old Watch, which has made time travel illegal in order to hold on to their power. 

“When you’re 12 you start asking this really important question of who you want to be,” Chiang said during the show’s Comic-Con panel Friday.  

That golden period of adolescence is something the Paper Girls comic illustrated well. And according to showrunner Christopher C. Rogers the show aims to have that same energy and then some. “I think everything that people love about the comics will be there … and more,” Rogers told the crowd. 

Paper Girls arrives on Amazon Prime July 29. \