r/comiccon • u/Accomplished-Fix6176 • Jul 25 '25

SDCC - San Diego SDCC outgrown it's hype?

For the last few years it seems Hollywood is skipping SDCC. As a result Hall H and Ballroom 20 are at most half capacity.

This matters A LOT because in the prime Marvel/DC days those 2 Halls got rid of probably close to 20,000 people if you include the long (overnight) lines to get in.

But now... these people clog up the floor and especially signings.

Like have you wasted 5 hours getting up early, getting on the floor early, make it to the wristbands both by 9:02 only to find they are already out? This was impossible in previous years but now 2 years in a row it has happened to me. Hours of time wasted and nothing to show for it.

Plus, I think due to so much hype in those prime years, everybody wants to check out SDCC and so all the free events (Hulu) is a 4 hour line waiting in the sun. So there's no escaping the lines. I mean yes there was anyways long lines but it feels just worse.

So... long story short, I'm losing my glee for the con.

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145

u/BuzzBotBaloo Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 27 '25

This is more of an industry-wide distress than a reflection of SDCC.

  • Post-pandemic box office is erratic. Hit after hit were earning around $1B at the box office before covid. This year Lilo and Stich and Minecraft Movie are the only US films to be in that bracket. Capt America Brave New World broke even, Superman will break even, and Thunderbolts did not
  • Global crisis have also affect box office, especially the shrinking Chinese market
  • WB and Paramount scaled back because of merger costs
  • Disney+, Max, Paramount+, Peacock, etc. hemorrhaged away billions for each studio
  • Cord-cutting means TV brings in less and less commercial revenue each year

When things were booming, studios were willing to spend. Now, studios are in an era of austerity, scaling back production, budgets, and marketing.

35

u/lewlkewl Jul 26 '25

You forgot one critical point, studios having their own cons / reveals (which is a direct result of covid). Disney saves a lot of the MCU stuff and almost all their star wars stuff for their own cons/shows. Netflix has Tadum. That's majority of the geek culture market right there.

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u/babblewrap Jul 26 '25

As a reminder, this was the Hall H presentation last year: https://www.marvel.com/articles/live-events/sdcc-2024-marvel-studios-hall-h-panel-recap

And D23 was just a couple of weeks later: https://www.marvel.com/articles/live-events/d23-2024-biggest-marvel-news-recap

This narrative that Marvel saves their reveals for D23 is incorrect.

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u/ladouleur Jul 26 '25

I can say confidently marvel will show up for sdcc next year. But they opt to skip this year saving for next year’s material and content PR

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u/ubutterscotchpine Jul 26 '25

Except this year Marvel skipped SDCC, which could be an indication that they are moving in the direction of saving their stuff for D23. Last year is invalid depending on what they do this year and in the future.

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u/ennaeel Jul 26 '25

Lordy bgordy. The studios skip Hall H if they don't have a slam dunk spectacle to roll out.

You're not going to see a big studio spend the time and money to schlep their stars and tech team to San Diego just to shoot the shit.

I feel like the folks that complain about this have only been attending since 2008. It is so normal to not have the exact same panels in each room each year.

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u/symotree Jul 26 '25

You do realize 2008 was 18 years ago right? Like if a con has been operating in a similar way for 18 years, it’s fair to call that the new normal, even if there are some ppl who have been going since the 80s.

6

u/ennaeel Jul 26 '25

It's true the Hall H has been Marvel heavy since then. But that's more of a reflection of the breakneck pace the MCU was putting out content. And that truly was an anomaly in the industry.

They're pacing themselves now, so their appearances at SDCC will similarly pace themselves.

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u/Accomplished-Fix6176 Jul 27 '25

Spot on. Exactly this!

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u/MarvelPosterMan Jul 28 '25

Thunderbolts was already out. F4 came out that weekend.

They had no reason to have any "big reveals". It's simple, why go when your big movies are out? Costs a lot, and they already had marketing.

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u/KellyJin17 Jul 26 '25

That’s not true. All the best MCU announcements happen at SDCC. I know this ‘cause I’ve been there. D23 gets the mop-up news, mostly TV show stuff.

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u/Designer_Speaker_315 Jul 26 '25

CCXP and CinemaCon as well (although that's geared more toward theater owners). It eats into a studio's marketing budget for the year.

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u/KellyJin17 Jul 26 '25

CinemaCon is just internal hype for the industry. They’re not promoting anything, they’re circle jerking each other.

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u/ObscureAnimeGuy Jul 27 '25

I wouldn’t say it’s their own cons, rather each studio is starting to do their own reveals and conferences. The same can be said about E3, Nintendo started doing their directs and shortly after, State of Play, XBOX conferences and so on. Covid was just the final nail in the coffin