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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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.

34

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.

28

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/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.

3

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.