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Comic-Con costs studios a lot of money, and I’m not sure what they get on their investment. Comic-Con doesn’t make or break movies, and you can dump tons of money on marketing, and your movie can still flop. Just ask Universal how well Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Cowboys & Aliens did. Both movies had a major presence at Comic-Con, and both tanked at the box office.

It’s no longer a must-hit destination for movies (it’s still a potent force for TV), and so I’m not surprised at Variety’s report that Sony and Paramount are joining Marvel in skipping Comic-Con’s Hall H this year. The studios say they didn’t really have anything to bring this year, but in a franchise-drenched environment, that’s not really true. If they wanted to, Sony could push Spectre or maybe even bring Goosebumps like they did last year. As for Paramount…well, actually Paramount really doesn’t have anything that would make a splash unless they wanted to do a last-minute push for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

But no studio really needs to bring anything they have. None of Marvel’s movies are going to be hurt if they don’t come to Comic-Con, and the same goes for other studios as well.

That being said, the Hall H lines will still be insane this year with the Warner Bros. panel (i.e. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There’s no reason to make the madhouse any crazier.

The 2015 San Diego Comic-Con runs from July 9 – 12th.


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