San Diego Comic-Con 2022 wrapped up Sunday, giving comic, movie, and gaming aficionados plenty of content to take in, dissect, and blog about for the next few months.
There was a panoply of highlights including debut trailers for Black Adam and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, teaser trailers for the National Treasure: Edge of History series and John Wick: Chapter 4, and gameplay footage of Batgirl in Gotham Knights. Marvel and DC showcased their upcoming projects, and animation and comic reveals overflowed.
Let’s dive into some of the key takeaways from this year’s jam-packed San Diego Comic-Con. For a full list of announcements, check out the rundown from IGN.
Spoilers incoming.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Not much was known about the upcoming film adaptation of the legendary role-playing game leading up to the convention. However, the film’s panel featuring Chris Pine (Wonder Woman, Star Trek), Michelle Rodriguez (Fast X), Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Regé-Jean Page (Bridgerton), Sophia Lillis (IT), and Hugh Grant and the accompanying trailer, clips, and photos gave fans an inside look at what will be one of the biggest releases of spring 2023.
Gotham Knights
Warner Bros.’ latest addition to the fan-favorite Arkham game series, Gotham Knights, is set to release October 25. Character trailers for Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood have dropped over the past few months, but little had been seen of Batgirl — one of the game’s main characters. Warner Bros. fixed that at SDCC by releasing a full 2-minute character trailer for Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl.
Another revelation about the highly anticipated game is that Joker will not be appearing, despite cameos from the Clown Prince of Crime in every game in the series so far. It is unknown whether Batman himself will feature, as he was killed off in the Arkham storyline at the end of the Arkham Knight — as far as we know.
Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power
When Amazon purchased the television rights to Lord of the Rings for $250 million and made a five-season commitment to Rings of Power in 2017, we waited with bated breath as production began. Five years later, we have a full 3-minute trailer and a set release date of September 2, 2022.
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power delves into the history before the events of the LOTR trilogy. Focusing primarily on the Second Age, a time when Sauron was first bringing his full might to bear, audiences will get more than just a cursory history lesson into Tolkein’s universe in the new series. The trailer suggests the series will draw heavily from the intricate history of Middle Earth laid out in Tolkein’s prequel tome, The Silmarillion.
It looks as though the rise of Sauron will be covered in detail, as will the history of Galadriel. Highlights from the trailer include the creation of a cursed Mordor blade, character reveals, and even a clip of the creation of a Balrog – one of Mordor’s most fearsome creatures.
DC
Right of the bat, DC and Warner Bros. addressed the elephant in the room: the studio will not be continuing with the Snyderverse. It had a complicated run, to say the least, but it looks like that time is well and truly over — no matter what fan petitions make the rounds online.
However, fans did get a full-length trailer for Shazam: Fury of the Gods and a new teaser trailer for Black Adam as a gesture of good faith. Dwayne Johnson even showed up in full Black Adam garb to promote the upcoming release.
Marvel
Marvel is like the Apple of the media world. Its reveals are the most anticipated, and usually the most innovative, too. Fans were not disappointed with this year’s panels. Marvel laid out the plan for all of its projects for the next few years, including Phase 6 of it cinematic universe.
Phase 6 will begin with Fantastic Four and will end with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars.
The current series of movies through the end of Phase 6 is officially being named the “Multiverse Saga,” several movies of which have already premiered.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Phase 4 will conclude with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, opening November 11 and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, premiering on Disney+ August 17.
Phase 5 will include Loki Season 2, Ant-Man: Quantumania, a third addition to the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, and much more. Marvel isn’t slowing down any time soon, and that’s okay by us.
Here’s a full list of Marvel’s upcoming projects from 2023 onward:
