THE SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON TRAILER COMPILE

First-look trailer reveals are coming thick and fast out of San Diego, where this year's star-studded Comic-Con is unfolding to hordes of pop-culturalists, ravenous for fresh content. The first wave of visual treats include properties from comic-book movie titans Marvel and DC, studios such as Warner Bros and New Line and streamers AMC+ and Paramount+.

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER
Wakanda Forever is the only theatrical release that Marvel Studios has left for 2022, so it makes sense for it to get the spotlight on the biggest stage of San Diego Comic-Con. 

After Chadwick Boseman died in August 2020, the filmmakers had to rethink how a sequel would work without his character, T’Challa. In December 2020, Disney announced that a new actor would not be hired to fill the role, adding that the new movie would focus on other characters within the world of Wakanda, the fictional African country where T’Challa was king.

ANNE RICE'S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
Based on Anne Rice’s revolutionary gothic novel, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire follows Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) and Claudia’s (Bailey Bass) epic story of love, blood and the perils of immortality, as told to journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian).

Chafing at the limitations of life as a black man in 1900s New Orleans, Louis finds it impossible to resist the rakish Lestat’s offer of the ultimate escape: joining him as his vampire companion. But Louis’s intoxicating new powers come with a violent price and the introduction of Lestat’s newest fledgling, the child vampire Claudia, soon sets them on a decades-long path of revenge and atonement. 

BLACK ADAM:

Dwayne Johnson stars in the action adventure Black Adam. The first-ever feature film to explore the story of the DC Super Hero comes to the big screen under the direction of Jaume Collet-Serra.

Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the ancient gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.

SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS:
From New Line Cinema comes Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which continues the story of teenage Billy Batson who, upon reciting the magic word “SHAZAM!,” is transformed into his adult Super Hero alter ego, Shazam.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” stars returning cast members Zachary Levi (“Thor: Ragnarok”) as Shazam; Asher Angel (“Andi Mack”) as Billy Batson, who are joined in the sequel by Rachel Zegler (“West Side Story”), with Lucy Liu (“Kung Fu Panda” franchise) and Helen Mirren (“F9: The Fast Saga”).

JOHN WICK 4:
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) takes on his most lethal adversaries yet in the upcoming fourth installment of the series. With the price on his head ever increasing, Wick takes his fight against the High Table global as he seeks out the most powerful players in the underworld, from New York to Paris to Osaka to Berlin.

Joining Reeves on-screen will be a cast that includes Lawrence Fishburne, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Scott Adkins, Natalia Tena, and Clancy Brown.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER
This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. 

Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

THE COMIC-CON 2016 TRAILER REEL

There was nothing overstated about the first Comic-Con. In fact, the founders themselves dubbed it a ‘mini-con’. San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Minicon, to apply its full tag, was held at the US Grant Hotel over one whole day on March 21, 1970, drawing in excess of 100 people. It paved the financial path to a larger 3-day event in August of the same year, the comic-book fan mecca blossoming into the San Diego Comic-Con by its fourth year and it’s current moniker, Comic-Con International: San Diego, in 1995…

Hollywood studios have debuted their latest genre epics to the receptive comic-book hordes for decades. The now famous ‘panel events’ in the legendary Hall H becoming one of the hottest ticket items on American film calendar. In 2016, Warner Bros took bragging rights; new trailers from their  DC Comics properties sent the web into meltdown and appear to have arrested the image slide that came in the wake of the divisive Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. But they were not the only studio out to win over the opinionated, social media-savvy fan base in attendance…

WONDER WOMAN
KEY PLAYERS: Director Patty Jenkins, unfairly burdened with the 'Can a woman direct a comic blockbuster?' baggage; star Gal Gadot, a untested leading lady commodity; Warner Bros, gambling a $100million budget on a June 2/US summer opening.
BUZZ: Through the roof - cool retro style, ala Captain America: First Avenger (still the best Marvel movie); chemistry between Gadot and Chris Pine suggest a buddy-pic/romantic vibe; the punchy line, "What I do is not up to you," set to be every young woman's mantra.   

JUSTICE LEAGUE
KEY PLAYERS: Ben Affleck, charged with lightening up after his surly spin as Batman in Dawn of Justice; Zack Snyder, charged with lightening up after his surly spin as director of Dawn of Justice; DC Comics, who are counting on the film to kickstart Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg franchises.
BUZZ: Crowd reaction was promising; trailer, in which Affleck's Bruce Wayne pitches a heroes union to some new faces, has a) personality, and b) Aquaman, so things are looking good. 

SUICIDE SQUAD
KEY PLAYERS: Will Smith, determined to establish a franchise ensemble ala The Avengers that has him out front of the action and potential billion-dollar box office; Margot Robbie, for whom superstardom beckons if she can just nail that one breakout role in a bonafide megahit; Warner Bros, who need to turn around a year peppered with costly underperformers (The Legend of Tarzan; Pan; In The Heart of The Sea).
BUZZ: With an August 5 release date, the Squad's panel performance was just stoking the fires of expectation. David Ayer's film is tracking through the roof, suggesting a blockbuster opening the likes of which the wan American summer box office desperately needs.  

LEGO BATMAN
KEY PLAYERS: Chris McKay, editor on the megahit The Lego Movie and stepping into the big, plastic-boxy shoes left by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller; an all-star voice cast, including Zach Galifianakis as The Joker; the Lego merchandising gurus, who have everything to lose if box office gold doesn't translate to toy store riches.
BUZZ: Good will high already, so new scenes and Michael Cera's Robin greeted with appropriate glee. 

KONG: SKULL ISLAND
KEY PLAYERS: High fan cred of red hot cast - Tom Hiddlestone (Avengers' nemesis, Loki), John Goodman (eyeing a 2017 Supporting Actor Oscar for 10 Cloverfield Lane) and Oscar winner Brie Larsen (this years' Comic-Con 'It Girl' with confirmation of her casting as Captain Marvel); the trailer itself, which hints at a truly epic scale.
BUZZ: Next-to-none before the trailer dropped; through the roof in the wake of its premiere.  

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
KEY PLAYERS: The legion of 'Pot-heads', their hunger for mystery and magic at fever pitch since their boy wizard's final bigscreen chapter in 2011; director David Yates, a Potter alumni; Eddie Redmayne, rolling the dice on franchise dollars as hero Newt Scamander; J.K. Rowling, the biggest name in bigscreen literary adaptations since Ian Fleming.
BUZZ: No half-measures in the trailer; Warners are selling it as the grown-up Potter sequel the fans have been baying for.  

DOCTOR STRANGE
KEY PLAYERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, who (like Eddie Redmayne) needs to expand critical community/fanboy adoration into fly-over state mainstream love (he's also in San Diego for TV's Sherlock Holmes); Marvel Studios, launching a deeper, darker heroic figure sans Avengers box office might; the effects crew, who are expanding upon (and, one assumes, enhancing further) visual cues introduced in Christopher Nolan's Inception.
BUZZ: High since the announcement of Cumberbatch's casting, but is he as hot in this post-Star Trek In Darkness period? Marvel are due for a stumble, but it's unlikely to be Doctor Strange...is it? 

KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
KEY PLAYERS: Leading men Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) and Aiden Gillen (Game of Thrones) are on the cusp; director Guy Ritchie needs to bounce back from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to maintain relevance.
BUZZ: Trailer looks to favour the same 'everything old is new again' approach of Ritchie's last big hit, Sherlock Holmes. He's working with the always reliable Jude Law, and sword and sorcery is hot again on the small screen, so... 

BLAIR WITCH
KEY PLAYERS: Adam Wingard, one of horror's most refreshing new visionaries (You're Next; V/H/S 1 and 2; The Guest); Lionsgate, who mirrored the ground-breaking marketing of the 1999 hit, selling this found-footage effort as 'The Woods' before wowing Comic-Con crowds with the Blair Witch connection.
BUZZ: The Web went wild with news that the Blair Witch mythology would be revisited. Lionsgate are hoping box office lightning will strike twice.  

SNOWDEN
KEY PLAYERS: Oliver Stone, whose agitprop credentials and decades of fearless politicizing seems tailor made for the material; Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, who needs to recapture the fan favour he enjoyed after Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and Looper, and bounce back from the Robert Zemeckis dud, The Walk; Shailene Woodley, whose Divergent series is DOA but seems destined for adult acting greatness.
BUZZ: Trailer poses more questions than it answers ("Spy. Soldier. Hero. Traitor"), but a good trailer should. Hacker tech looks old very quickly, so will need to impress as a human story to leave an impact.