The only Comic-Con debrief you need + other essential industry news

Comic-Con keeps reinventing itself, and the 2025 edition proved the point again. The halls still filled with costumes and chatter, yet the mood felt different once the big studio absences became clear. Fans adjusted expectations and found fresh energy in the panels that did show up, while the rest of the industry news rolled on with its usual mix of surprises and long-game announcements.

Stephen King’s It

The franchise has moved well past that first film. IT: Welcome to Derry arrived on HBO in 2025 with new trailers screened at the convention, and the show is already mapped for multiple seasons. What began as a single terrifying clip has grown into an expanding universe that keeps pulling viewers back to Derry.

Comic-Con dining with Xfinity

This pop-up diner became a festival favorite with meals inspired by Game of Thrones, Luke Cage, and Orange is the New Black being served up from recreated sets.

Twin Peaks’ David Lynch & Mark Frost confuse audience again

Evil Corp takes over

Fans of Mr. Robot lined up for a truly immersive experience from E Corp bank, following the success of last year’s VR fan participation event.

“It doesn’t look like anything to me.”

Westworld gave a select group of Comic-Con attendees the golden ticket this year by hosting an immersive Westworld park experience. Let’s hope these violent delights didn’t have violent ends for those gathered.

Hall H Absence and Shifting Studio Strategies

Marvel, DC, Warner Bros., and Paramount skipped major Hall H presence at SDCC 2025 due to scheduling conflicts and production timelines. The decision changed the rhythm of the weekend. Smaller rooms hosted tighter conversations, and fans spent less time waiting for spectacle and more time hunting for details in the rooms that remained open.

George Lucas Returns to Comic-Con

George Lucas made his first appearance at the event, discussing a new museum project tied to his archives. The room filled quickly once word spread, and the conversation stayed focused on preservation rather than future film plans. Attendees left with the sense that one of the industry’s most private figures had chosen a public stage to mark a personal milestone.

Horror and Genre Expansions Beyond Superheroes

Panels for Alien: Earth, Predator: Badlands, Tron: Ares, and Five Nights at Freddy's 2 drew steady crowds. The programming leaned into horror, science fiction, and animation properties that sit outside traditional superhero pipelines. Studios used the slots to test tone and tease casting without promising immediate release dates, giving genre fans a clearer sense of what might arrive in the next two years.

Peacemaker Season 2 and DCU Momentum

James Gunn and the Peacemaker Season 2 panel stood out as a highlight despite Marvel absence. The discussion covered returning cast members and tonal adjustments that carry forward from the first season. The panel felt like a deliberate signal that DC Studios intends to keep smaller-scale stories alive even while larger franchise plans shift around them.

Other news

Weekend box office: a battle of epic proportions

Christopher Nolan (Inception) won the weekend box office with Dunkirk, debuting at $50 million. The World War II film, starring Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Harry Styles (One Direction: This Is Us) ruled at 3,720 US theaters including IMAX. Wonder Woman overtook Guardians of the Galaxy II as top summer blockbuster, and Girls Trip, an R-rated comedy about four POC women on a wild weekend in New Orleans, earned over $28 million. Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of Thousand Planets, sci-fi epic fronted by Cara Delevingne (Paper Towns), did not reach great heights in theaters. Having cost $180 million to produce, it bombed harder than the beaches of Dunkirk with a domestic opening of under 17 million.

Netflix browsing hack

The comic book universe Spawns again

Todd McFarlane (Ultimate Spider-Man) has teamed up with Blumhouse Productions, the scare-lovers behind Get Out and Paranormal Activity, to turn creepy comic book Spawn into a low-budget horror film.

Queer elderly Latinas foregrounded in new short

Transatlantyk Festival welcomes Ed Norton & Lucrecia Martel

Polish film festival Transatlantyk received special guest Edward Norton (Fight Club) at the closing ceremony for its power of woman-themed seventh edition. Fittingly, Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel (The Headless Woman) became the second female filmmaker to be presented with the prestigious FIPRESCI 90+ statuette.