Expect more star power at San Diego Comic-Con this year

Early signs point to a superpowered Hollywood presence at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International.

A joint strike from actors and screenwriters meant all major movie and TV studios stayed away from Comic-Con last year. With that over, Marvel Studios — the biggest of them all — is planning an epic return, said industry publication Deadline, and experts predict this year’s convention in late July will, at the very least, be much bigger than last year.

At least part of the reason to expect some heavy hitters like DC, HBO, Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures is a sluggish year at the movies. Domestic box office revenue was $3.5 billion in early July, said Box Office Mojo, down 22 percent from last year.

Miro Copic, a marketing expert and professor at San Diego State University, said Marvel is an example of a studio that could really use a big showing this year. Like much of the movie business, Marvel faced unexpected recent bombs, including “The Marvels” and the most recent “Ant-Man” installment,movies that seemed like slam dunks but failed to draw big numbers.

“They all need a Hall H win,” Copic said.

The Convention Center’s biggest room, the 6,500-person Hall H, has reached mythical status in popular culture. Copic anticipates studios will try to go big at Comic-Con, instead of sitting home and counting their losses.

It’s probably for the best that actors return this year, Copic said, considering San Diego wants a good showing with Comic-Con’s contract ending in 2025. There’s been a persistent fear that Comic-Con would split for a bigger convention space in Los Angeles and Anaheim. However, the continued spillover of attractions into the Gaslamp Quarter is something that gives San Diego an edge, he said.

Last year, the absence of studios meant very little to the overall event. It still sold out all 135,000 tickets, and hotels at the time reported few cancellations after the studios all pulled out.

Free installations throughout downtown were as big as ever. A mock Japanese village was constructed outside the Hilton San Diego Bayfront to promote the TV series “Shogun.” The Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter Hotel turned into an old- time New Orleans for the “Interview with the Vampire” show. And an East Village warehouse was turned into a mini-Jurassic Park complete with animatronic dinosaurs.

There’s every reason to expect another big promotion push downtown, said Taimur Dar, editor at comics culture publication The Beat. He said he’s seen the free outside events —for people who can’t get a ticket — grow each year and, in some ways, get more attention on social media than things happening inside the convention hall. That type of free attention is gold for promotors.

While Dar thinks this year will be bigger inside Hall H than last year, he cautioned it might be more subdued compared to the pre-pandemic days. He said in 2018 and 2019 that the so-called streaming wars were heating up with every service — Apple+, Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBO, Hulu, and more — sparing no expense. Entire casts of TV shows were trotted on stage, and there was hardly space for all the shows, with some presentations pushed to the traditionally slower Thursday and Sunday.

“They went all-in with streaming,” Dar said of Disney, in particular. “They put out too much content and I think people got sick and tired of it. The quality suffered. And now we’re seeing a pullback on spending.”

The once-promising future of streaming seems less clear these days, with Netflix still the top streamer and a lot of the others talking about consolidating.

An optimist might say streaming and box office woes are even more of a reason to go big at Comic-Con, but Dar said he wasn’t sure about that after so many recent Hollywood misfires. For example, would Warner Bros. really feel like spending a boatload of cash in San Diego after Memorial Day Weekend’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” — a major event film starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth — lost millions of dollars?

Regardless, the convention is always expected to be a boon for the city. San Diego State University estimates the impact of the convention is more than $165 million in overall spending with more than $90 million in direct attendee spending. That takes into account hotel stays, restaurants and numerous businesses that surround it.

The nonprofit Comic-Con organization, which also runs Anaheim’s Wonder Con, brought in $26.6 million in program service revenue in 2022, said its tax filings. It was an improvement from 2020 and 2021 when the convention went online-only because of the pandemic. Tax returns for last year’s convention were not yet available.

Marco Li Mandri, president of New City America (which manages Little Italy and East Village neighborhood associations), said he hopes for a big year for Comic-Con and downtown.

He said it’s important to remember the wealth is spread around with people staying in hotels all over San Diego.

“In Little Italy, we’re anticipating that every hotel and AirBNB will be filled,” Li Mandri said. “People won’t stay all day at Comic-Con. They will come back to Little Italy, eat dinner and enjoy themselves. It will really pump up the economy before, during and after after  Comic-Con.”

It won’t be long before San Diegans, and Hollywood watchers, find out how this year’s convention might play out. Comic-Con starts releasing schedules for the day’s events on Thursday. Installations and building wraps typically start going up the weekend before the event. Comic-Con starts July 24 with a preview night, and runs through July 28.