So Why is Marvel Skipping SDCC 2020?
By George Robbins
Comic-Con is an event of world renown nowadays that comes around to show us what will be releasing in the world of comic books in the near future. Although its name suggests that it is all about comics, there are many facets to the convention which attracts crowds of all backgrounds. While the people who go there are still primarily comic book fans, there are fans of many different movie brands and show brands that travel to the convention as well. The convention itself is usually host to thousands of people every single year at every convention that is held. It is due to this fact that they have sadly had to close down the in-person event and instead decided to go with an online-only event where anyone can see what is happening in the comic book entertainment world.
Normally at Comic-Con there are a number of publishers and distributors who show up in order to tell people about their upcoming releases. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a comic release and more times than not has something to do with some form of media for said brand. This is why companies that produce toys are often times found at conventions like this because it gives them the perfect space to market their new lines of toys. It is the movie and television announcements that usually draw in the largest crowds however, so this is why so many people, even those who cannot attend, end up being drawn into the culture of Comic-Con. As already stated, this year is a sad affair due to the pandemic as it has forced a number of businesses to decide not to participate at all in the convention.
Among the companies that often times bring the most content and the content that brings out the biggest reactions are DC and Marvel. These two companies are responsible for drawing in very large crowds for their announcements. It appears as though neither company is going to be attending the online convention this year. DC has decided that they will simply host their own online event where they will make announcements at the end of August. Meanwhile, Marvel will skip the Con entirely and most likely won’t go back until next year’s Comic Con. One of the big questions currently on people’s minds is why Marvel is skipping out on the convention this year. The simple answer would be that they just have nothing to present this year to the public.
To go more in-depth as to why they are not going to be participating in Comic-Con this year, we need to take a look at conventions from previous years. They did skip out on the 2018 convention as well due to the fact they they were just trying to wrap up the infinity saga, whereas this time, they are skipping due to the lack of content. They spent last year at the convention revealing information for the new ‘Black Widow‘ movie that has yet to release. ‘Black Widow’ was meant to release earlier this year, but the announcement of the pandemic forced all theaters to shut their doors to the public. Thus, the movie’s release date was pushed to some time later this year and even that is tentative based on what happens in the coming months. they had already run a full marketing campaign for the film to hype it up, so bringing it to the convention again would just be redundant.
The ‘Black Widow’ movie was among only a couple of films that have been announced as releasing over the next year and a half or so. The only other film that had completed principal photography before the pandemic was ‘The Eternals.’ What this means is that the movie actually has content that can be cut into trailers or images to help hype the movie and even then it might just not fit the release schedule. The only other movie that was supposed to be worked on was ‘Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ which wasn’t even able to start up production due to the start of the pandemic. Without any production, there is no content to show for the film, so it really isn’t all that surprising that they would not want to participate this year.