There are a lot of SDCC announcements popping up as we are a couple months away from Comic Con, have you checked out the open commissions list? Think you can get me into the Bad Idea party? Isn’t that place like 30 mins away from the convention center?
It’s not all good news as The Hollywood Reporter broke in a newsletter that Marvel Studios will not have a Saturday night Hall H panel.
From the THR Heat Vision post on May 30:
Test screenings aside, Fantastic Four opens the Friday of San Diego Comic-Con, and this year, Marvel will break with tradition and not have its infamous, senses-shattering Saturday evening Hall H panel.
With Avengers: Doomsday pushing out to December 2026, Marvel now has another SDCC before the film’s theatrical release. The cast of Avengers: Doomsday is currently in production, and it didn’t feel like the right timing for a Hall H panel, at least that was the thinking inside the company.
Marvel will still have a major presence at this year’s SDCC, with numerous panels about comics, games and more. And sources tell Heat Vision that it will a massive footprint in the San Diego Convention Center, with a fully redesigned and immersive booth that leans into the release of Fantastic Four.
And there could be some surprises in store, as well.
San Diego Comic Con attendees will see plenty of Marvel out on the floor but it might feel a bit more crowded than usual on Saturday.
This isn’t the first time Marvel have made this decision and THR continued to explain:
It’s not the first time Marvel has skipped Hall H due to timing (Marvel operates on the go big or stay home ethos). In 2011, the company was focused on shooting The Avengers. In 2015, it didn’t have footage to share, and in 2018, it had several films wrapping production but nothing new to announce.
So what can Marvel fans look forward to? Well none of this is confirmed but Alex Perez from Cosmic Circus recently mentioned in a interview that
“[he has] heard Marvel will return for SDCC, but I don’t expect them to make it a grand spectacle like they normally do with Phase reveals. I think that the main focus for Marvel at SDCC will be to promote their new film, Fantastic Four: The First Steps, which coincidentally drops around the same time as SDCC this year.
I’d also expect looks at Wonder Man, Daredevil: Born Again season 2 and VisionQuest, and an additional first look, possibly maybe even a teaser of Avengers: Doomsday. They have also had this additional animation panel they do the day before their appearance at Hall H, and I expect to see some stuff on Eyes of Wakanda, Marvel Zombies and X-Men ‘97 S2. Spider-Man: Brand New Day could be an outlier that’s still unsure on how it might appear, but that would have to be in coordination with Sony.
Aside from that, I don’t really see them going ahead and talking about stuff for their next saga because they want the focus to be about Phase 6”.
So it seems that there is plenty to look forward to but this year is just a victim of timing and production schedules. The SDCC unofficial blog closed their article explaining the situation by quoting Kevin Feige last year
“We build movie schedules often times… literally designing our film schedules around what we would have ready to show at Comic-Con.” However, with the shift in release dates, the timing likely just no longer worked here. The good news is that SDCC 2026 will occur before Doomsday releases, so it seems likely we’ll get the big Marvel Hall H Saturday night panel again… just next year.”
