Culture

The Eight Most Important Things That Happened At This Year’s Comic Con

Including Avengers, Batfleck, Game of Thrones, and Community -- and just what has happened to Wonder Woman?

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Over the last few days, the internet has been inundated with more than the usual amount of pop culture news, thanks to that special time of year known as Comic Con: a huge entertainment and comic convention held each yeah in San Diego, which finished up late this morning.

Unsurprisingly, the four-day convention was pretty super hero-centric this year — but there were still enough announcements and surprise trailers to keep everybody’s inner-nerd more than happy.

We Got Our First Look At The New Mad Max

The Mad Max: Fury Road trailer actually looks decent, if you can get past the fact that they rebooted it with an American cast.

During the panel, George Miller said the film will be like the other three, “a very simple allegory, almost a Western on wheels” — though it’s hard to ignore the glossy production values and slow motion sequences, which look nothing like the gritty original.

You can catch a brief glimpse of Charlize Theron and Megan Fox in the footage, which is full of suitably epic explosions, car chases and cannibal attacks. The film is due out in May 2015.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron Teaser Featured A Big Shock

There’s a lot riding on the Avengers sequel, which ended up dominating the Marvel panel. Almost the entire cast fronted up, including new baddies Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlett Witch), Paul Bettany (The Vision) and James Spader (Ultron), who considers Comic-Con the weirdest, craziest place he’s ever been (okay).

After Robert Downey Jr gave the audience palpitations by dancing on stage, teaser footage apparently showed the superheroes trying to pick up Thor’s mighty hammer – before shit got real and Tony Stark ended up standing over what looks like all of the Avengers’ dead bodies. Sadly, this trailer won’t be released for a while; we’ll have to tide ourselves over with second-hand descriptions until then.

The panel also featured the first plot details and footage from Ant Manwhich has been plagued with drama since Edgar Wright left over creative differences. Also, Guardians of the Galaxy is getting a sequel.

Zack Snyder is Still Really Trying to Make Affleck Happen

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The world got its first close-up of that chin as Batman during the Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice panel. Zack Snyder, in an effort to prove that he can bring DC back to the forefront in this Avengers-obsessed world, surprised the crowd by carting an uncomfortable looking Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill (Superman) and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) out on stage.

They didn’t exactly do much – they got their photo op and left without saying a word – but when Snyder introduced the footage, which featured a fully suited-up Affleck facing off with Superman as he activates the bat signal, the crowd naturally went berserk.

 

Snyder also unveiled Gadot’s Wonder Woman costume, which was a bronze, remarkably colourless piece of armour that looks like it belongs on the set of 300.

Combine that with the platform heels she’s sporting, and the internet is less than pleased.

Prepare To Be Terrified In The Walking Dead 

We got our first glimpse of season five of The Walking Dead and, spoiler alert, they’re out of Terminus.

Needless to say Rick and crew are desperate to get to Washington with the cure, and it looks like they’re going to take some drastic steps to make that happen.

We Met The Next Group Of People Set To Die On Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones did its annual these-are-our-new-cast-members-guess-which-ones-will-die intro video, and most of them will be related to Oberyn and based in the desert kingdom of Dorne. Among the new faces is New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in 2002’s Whale Rider.

Another highlight of the panel was the fourth season blooper reel, which includes Tyrion and Jamie dancing to Tyrion’s trial, and Khaleesi swearing her head off.

Community Won’t Be Dropping Any F-Bombs, And Troy Might Come Back

Although Community will start airing on Yahoo, and no longer be beholden to the strict world of network TV, Dan Harmon doesn’t expect the show to be all that different. It will still air weekly, and they won’t start throwing in a lot of adult content just because they can.

Jonathan Banks, who plays Professor Hickey, probably won’t be back — he’s contracted to Breaking Bad’s spin-off, Better Call Saul — but Harmon hasn’t ruled out a return from Troy, which would go a long way towards making the show watchable again.

Hunger Games: Mockingjay Footage Is Finally Here

They’ve definitely been dragging out the Mockingjay promo, but we finally got a minute-long Hunger Games trailer, and it’s everything you want it to be.

The teaser features our first glimpses of District 13, the Capitol in full-scale attack mode, Julianne Moore’s President Coin and Natalie Dormer’s highly anticipated Cressida. November 20. Start counting down.

There Will Be A New King Kong Movie

During a Legendary Pictures panel, where the main focus was expected to be the Godzilla sequel, the studio dropped a bomb: it’s releasing a new King Kong movie, all about Skull Island: King Kong’s mysterious and monster-filled home.

After premiering some raw footage to the crowd of stunned fans, they didn’t announce a cast or the director, but they did reveal that the film will be released in November 2016 — and it’s pretty much a given that we’ll be seeing Godzilla vs King Kong the year after that.

Emily Tatti is a Melbourne-based writer and the editor of Ricochet Magazine. She tweets @narrativekind.