For years now, Comic-Con National has been the domain of big name movie and entertainment franchises, sometimes overshadowing its origins of comics and sci-fi super fans. But the fact is that Comic-Con is now big business and everyone from major studios pushing new franchises to long-standing TV shows use the convention as an epicenter of fandom from which to make big announcements. After all, if you announce it to your biggest fans, you know they’ll create buzz about it. This year’s convention wrapped on Sunday, and we’ve combed through the news to pick out the tidbits that young consumers are talking about. Here are three Comic-Con things you should know:
1. The Last Season of How I Met Your Mother Is Already A Big Deal
How did five friends who hang out in a bar beat out superheroes and zombie killers to become the most talked-about act on social media after their appearance at Comic-Con? How I Met Your Mother is entering its ninth and final season, and its clear that fans are clamoring for information and eager to talk about what’s coming up on the show. The entire season will take place over the course of one weekend— with their patented flashbacks and flash-forwards included of course. The CBS show used their moment in the spotlight at the convention to poke fun at their long run with a special clip of Ted’s kids very angrily complaining about the long wait to hear the reveal about how their dad finally met their mom. They missed college thanks to his rambling story-telling style!
2. Superman VS. Batman Could Be Coming To A Screen Near You
Superhero films have become Hollywood mainstays, with barely any time passing between reboots and retellings of comic favorites. (There were only five years between the Tobey Maguire Spiderman flicks and the more recent Andrew Garfield installment.) With so many superheroes in theatres all the time, it takes something pretty unusual to get fans talking about another big-budget CGI hero-fest two years in advance, but a combined Superman/Batman film might just be the thing that does it. The Warner Bros. panel on Saturday of the convention closed with Man of Steel director Zach Snyder announcing the next Superman movie, with a mashup of the Superman and Batman logos on the massive screens in the room. Very little information is available, but just the logos together have created more buzz than almost any other stories coming out of Comic-Con.
3. Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. Moves To The Small Screen Backed By Fanfare
The box office boomed for The Avengers last year ranking it as the third highest grossing movie of all time, leading Marvel to expand the story from the silver to small screen with new TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Though the series is a departure for the ABC network, creator Joss Whedon can deliver hits to young consumers, being arguably most famous for creating the original Millennial cult obsession Buffy the Vampire Slayer, long before Twihards and True Blood. Instead of leading with a teaser clip, Whedon played the entire first episode, giving fans the exclusive access they crave during the convention. For a show that had fans demanding for the return of main character Agent Coulson after his death, true to superhero form, this TV adaptation is likely to attract a following, especially with cameos from other Marvel franchises like Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers.
