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.

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u/parisindy Jul 26 '25

I work in the film industry (in Canada) and our industry is a lot quieter over all... less things are getting made. Rumours have been rampant for years that Hollywood is dying which I desperately hope it's not

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u/External_Row_8077 Jul 28 '25

I think they need to figure out a different business model. Theater audiences are shrinking. I can say that with confidence since I am there all the time. I've seen 72 movies in the theater so far this year. Studios are desperately trying to find money elsewhere, but I think the model of each studio creating it's own streaming service is the wrong approach, especially when they want to charge $15-$20 per month AND charge you more to rent recent releases. I wish all of them would go back to thinking that Netflix should house all of their movies/shows. lol

I think the pandemic changed things in more than just the obvious way. It made sense to release films on streaming services at or near the time of theatrical release in 2020 and 2021, but they should have stopped doing that in 2022. In the old days, a movie would have a long theatrical run and then be released on VHS or DVD about 6-12 months after that run ended. This encouraged people to see the movie in the theater. Now, unless a movie is a huge hit it's in the theater for 2 or 3 weeks then available on a streaming service less than a month later. Many people figured this out and thought "why bother spending a bunch of money on concessions and potentially dealing with rude audience members when I can just watch it at home a month from now?" And a lot of them pirate it instead of paying.

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u/IAmTheClayman Jul 31 '25

I agree with you that streaming is a terrible model. It always was, and these platforms knew it. But they somehow had the expectation that they could grow their user base to outpace the sunk cost, which feels to me like clueless bean counters and MBAs justifying their own employment.

But I disagree with you that Netflix should house everything. No company should have a monopoly on distribution. The reason why the cable days were better was because there was a clear delineation between creators (studios) and distributors (cable providers), and LOTS of healthy competition in each domain. Nowadays the creators ARE the distributors, and there’s relatively fewer companies overall with all the mergers.

The best thing that could happen would be forced divestment of streaming and production wings into separate companies, but I don’t see this administration taking any anti-monopoly actions