Tim Connolly
Every year masses of fired up fans pack into Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center to find out what Hollywood has on their slate to offer the world of Geekdom. In the Comic Con world, it is without a doubt the biggest and most anticipated day of the year. The Big Show.
This year, Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment were once again first at bat when the lights went down, and there was a lot of speculation regarding what they might reveal. Especially with the DCEU.
Did they meet the hype? What did we learn? Here is everything you need to know from each panel.
Ready Player One
Warner Bros. kicked things off with Steven Spielberg and Author Ernest Cline taking the stage for ‘Ready Player One’. The movie is a story of a virtual world called Oasis, where a teenage boy finds himself competing in a treasure hunt against ruthless foes after the game’s founder dies, leaving his fortune behind as the grand prize for a game that quickly enters the real world.
The two were quickly joined on stage by the cast of the film, Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, T.J. Miller, and Ben Mendelsohn, before giving us our first footage of the movie.
With the look of a true Spielberg blockbuster, the Ready Player One trailer presents a film loaded with 80’s and 90’s nostalgia, including shots of the Iron Giant walking with a Ninja Turtle, and the iconic Delorean from ‘Back to the Future’ speeding around in an epic car chase.
Spielberg mentioned that Iron Giant actually plays a major role in the movies plot. Which is more than enough to get me onboard.
MoviemaniacsDE also posted the full Ready Player One panel on their Youtube channel.
Blade Runner 2049
There wasn’t too much new from this panel, but Jared Leto did appear on stage as a hologram to introduce director Denis Villeneuve and cast members Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, and Lennie James.
While they did show a bit of exclusive footage, most of it was from the trailer released by the WB on July 17th. Regardless, it looks absolutely incredible and I will be in a seat, popcorn in hand, on opening night.
Another thing worth mentioning is the awesome “Blade Runner 2049 Experience” set up across the street form the convention center. It is without a doubt among the most intricate and interactive attractions ever set up for SDCC.
DC Reveals It’s Next Eight Movies
First up after the release of Justice League in November will be Shazam, which will reportedly not feature Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam. At least not yet.
Next in line is ‘Suicide Squad 2’, then ‘The Batman’, ‘Justice League Dark’, ‘Flash Point’, ‘Wonder Woman 2’, ‘Green Lantern Corps’, and lastly ‘Batgirl’. With Flashpoint and JL Dark being the two biggest surprises of the group, but no additional information was given for the new titles.
Aquaman
Jason Momoa got the audience worked up when he ran through Hall H holding Aquaman’s trident, high-fiving fans all along the way. He then introduced a video message from director, James Wan, who said that ‘Aquaman’ will be an origin story of sorts.
The Hall was then shown a few small clips from the film, but there wasn’t much to show considering production is still in its early stages.
Justice League
For the grand finale, and with Jason Momoa still on stage, moderator Chris Hardwick introduced fellow Justice League cast members, Ben Affleck (Batman), Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Ezra Miller (Flash), and Ray Fisher (Cyborg).
Before unveiling the new trailer for the movie, they took a few questions. With the most obvious elephant in the room being addressed first – Will this be the last appearance of Batfleck?
Ben Affleck took the opportunity to seemingly put the rumors to rest by saying, “Batman is the greatest role in the world…I’m so thrilled to do it.” While he stopped short of definitively confirming that he will return as the Dark Knight in Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’, it was enough to satisfy most.
From the horse's mouth: Ben Affleck IS #Batman #SDCC2017 #WB pic.twitter.com/1ioofdPZxz
— JoBlo.com (@joblocom) July 22, 2017
As for the new Justice League trailer, we get our first look at the movie’s big bad, Steppenwolf. We also hear him referencing the world being left unprotected due to Superman and Green Lantern’s absence. The footage is almost non-stop action from start to finish.
Take a look…
While many, including myself, were expecting a Green Lantern casting reveal with the Justice League panel and/or trailer, it never came. Rumors have been circling for months around the possibility that Armie Hammer had been pegged for the role of Hal Jordan, but ultimately DC left us guessing again.
Another obvious missing piece from the Justice League panel and trailer was Henry Cavil/Superman. However, when asked if Superman would be in the movie, Gal Gadot said, “If you’re a big Superman fan, you’re going to be very happy with Justice League.”
The trailer also ended with a couple possible hints at the return of the Man of Steel and/or the Arrival of Green Lantern, when one or two unseen character(s) approach Alfred while he’s working on a car. Alfred then says, “He said you’d come…Now lets hope you’re not too late.”
Before Alfred sees whoever approaches him off screen, we hear two ground tremors and then see a green glow in Alfred’s glasses as he addresses them. At the same time, there is also a small moment when a possible piece of red cape appears in the bottom right corner of the screen. So, is this Superman, Green Lantern, or both? I personally think it’s likely both of them together, with Superman possibly recruiting the Lanterns for assistance.
For now it’s all just speculation, but with the movies release date less than four months away, we’ll find out soon enough. You can also view the full panel on the Films That Rock YouTube channel.
Summary
In the end, Warner Bros. presentation wasn’t as eventful as many had hoped. However, the announcement that the upcoming Flash solo film will be based on the Flashpoint story is by far the most intriguing.
This means that Geoff Johns’ 2011 universe-warping time-travel epic, which saw Barry Allen drastically change the present by going back in time and saving his mother, will come to the big screen, and possibly be used to reboot the DCEU, introduce the multiverse, or at least pay off those weird dream sequences from BvS.
