A certain southern California city is once again inundated with the sounds, sights, and costumes of Comic-Con International: San Diego. The weather is warmer than usual — as many locals have told Rotten Tomatoes in recent days — and the humidity is high. Nonetheless, the show rolls on with various films and television programs vying for con-goers’ attention. Of course, we’re here keep track of it all. Let’s take a look at how Thursday shaped up.
Brad Bird Looks At His Cineamatic Journey And Offers A Sneak Peak At Ray Gunn
Eight years after Incredibles 2, filmmaker Brad Bird is back with a new animated film, Ray Gunn, and he took the opportunity to look back at his storied career and what the future holds. He reminisced about his early memories of movies: going to the theater with his film-loving parents and attempting to create sequential art with his earliest attempts at drawing. This led to some discussion of early work like the “Family Dog” episode of Amazing Stories, the short-lived spinoff featuring the same characters, and his time on The Simpsonsbefore entertaining the audience with tales of his feature films.
He abject fear while Tom Cruise first attempted a key stunt in Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol proved to a great moment of hilarity for the star and the Comic-Con audience. He also mentioned he ended up directing that film because Cruise wanted to discuss movies with him after seeing The Incredibles. And when Bird was ready to direct a live action feature, Mission: Impossiblewas waiting for him.
Although the director still wants to make live-action features — he’s even developing one right now with “some” animated sequences as part of the concept — animation is still his first love and he returns to it with Ray Gunn. Describing it as “Buck Rogers meets The Maltese Falcon,” it takes place in an alternate reality where man shares a retro-fantasy world with aliens. And in the first seven minutes screened during the panel, the audience learned Ray (Sam Rockwell) has been hired to determine if an acquaintance is helping to smuggle illegal aliens to the surface. It leads to a fight and a chance for him and his pal, Eyera (voiced by Tom Waits!), to escape.
And for those wondering about Incredibles 3: Bird said he is co-writing and co-producing the film while Peter Sohn, the voice of Emile in Ratatouille and a long-time Pixar staffer, takes over as director. He skillfully avoided questions about the plot, even when a long-time collaborator, composer Michael Giacchino, joined him on stage to ask rather pointed questions about the production. He may have also secured the chance to score the threequel in the process.
Ray Gunn, meanwhile, arrives on Netflix December 18.
Percy Jackson And The Olympians Takes A Look At Season 3
Somehow, Percy Jackson and the Olympiansis already approaching its third year, and that means big things for Percy (Walker Scobell), Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), Grover (Aryan Simhadri), and the others as the characters reach the events of The Titan’s Curse. Stars Scobell and Simhadri, along with fellow castmates Charlie Bushnell, Tamara Smart, Levi Chrisopulos, and Olive Abercrombie, took to Hall H early on Thursday to wow the Percyfaithful with a sneak peak of season 3.
The first clip was introduced by Jeffrieses this ominous line from Percy: “I knew the risk, but if I needed to sacrifice myself, my friends, was it really a choice?”
As mentioned above, the new year brings with it the first ever adaptation of author Rick Riordan’s third book in the series. The previous two seasons had a point in comparison: the theatrical feature films. But executive producer Craig Silverstein told the audience he felt the pressure of advancing into uncharted territory. Luckily, Riordan reacted positively to the production’s design for Westover Hall. He told Silverstein, “That’s exactly how I imagined it.” Although it was a definite vote of confidence, the producer is anxious to see how the die-hard fans react. Of course, some have spied parts of the campus in previously released sneak peaks.
Percy Jackson and the Olympiansreturns November 20 on Disney+.
The Last Airbender Unveils Avatar: Seven Havens
Speaking of die-hard fans, few fandoms receive the sort of devotion Avatar: The Last Airbenderhas accrued over the last 20 years. Their reward: a new feature film, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, and a spotlight in SDCC’s famous Hall H. Also in their prize package was the first trailer for the upcoming animated series, Avatar: Seven Havens.
Set after the final adventure of Avatar Korra (Janet Varney), twin Avatars Pavi (Saheli Khan) and Nisha (Aishu Devan) must deal with the fallout of their predecessors’ actions. Only, there’s a problem: Pavi, an Earthbender, is considered a force of destruction. Will she and Nisha be able to save a world already on the brink and seemingly in a post-apocalyptic phase?
Original Avatarcreators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko return to orchestrate the latest epic from the bending world. The production already includes two books — the Avatarterm for season — for a grand total of 26 episodes planned at this time. Although, it is important to remember The Legend of Korrawas originally designed to be a one-off season before it extended out to a larger story.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, meanwhile, debuts July 25 on Paramount+. Seven Havens makes its grand entrance on October 9.
Stuart Fails To Save The Universe But Brings Back A Comic-Con Favorite
Throughout the run of The Big Bang Theory, the series’ annual SDCC panel was one of the highlights as the cast, and later the writing staff, took to Ballroom 20 (or Hall H depending on the year) to regale fans in Bazinga t-shirts with behind-the-scenes tales of production, sneak peaks of upcoming seasons, and whatever popped into Melissa Rauch’s head once she became the moderator of the sessions.
Executive producer Chuck Lorre and Stuart Fails To Save The Universeco-creator Zak Penn returned to Hall H to introduce their new Big Bangspinoff to the Comic-Con faithful. Stars Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, John Ross Bowie, and Brian Posehn joined them to discuss how the new show differs from its predecessors — which also includes Young Sheldonand Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage— and why it was so important to return to that Pasadena comic book store. But as anything can happen in the series, DC Comics publisher Jim Lee crashed the presentation to tease a DC-heavy episode. He even claimed it will feature “some of the best versions” of the DC characters.
In the series, Sussman returns as Big Bang‘s Stuart Bloom, the owner of a comic shop near CalTech who creates a crisis in the multiverse. Now, he needs helps from the others and multiversal variants of characters viewers might recognize.
During the panel, Lee called the storyline of the series “super ambitious.”
The first episode of Stuart Fails To Save The Universeis available now on HBO Max.
Elsewhere In The Convention Center
Up in Ballroom 20, Neon showed off its latest sci-fi offering, Na Hong-Jin’s Hope, while A24 followed up with Adam Wingard’s new movie Onslaught. And on the show floor, LEGO announced an expansion with Star Trekbeyond its already released model of the U.S.S. EnterpriseNCC-1701-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. And in the evening, some con-goers glimpsed a rare appearance of the controversial documentary Stan Lee: The Final Chapter. All of that plus a new trailer for the upcoming Resident Evil and a surprise appearance by a certain notorious actor definitely leaves one with the feeling that Comic-Con is on.
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