Perhaps it’s not surprising to learn that, for a website called “Den of Geek,” San Diego Comic-Con is basically our Super Bowl (or Champions League Finals or something for you Brits).

No event on the pop culture calendar commands more nerd respect than SDCC. So, just as we’ve done every year for more than a decade, we hit the streets of San Diego and the halls of the Hilton Bayfront to cover it all. Whether it was hosting our own video interview and portrait studio, attending panels and press rooms, or dropping by some screenings, we made sure to take in everything we could.

Oh, and then there was the magazine, of course! Featuring none other than Tom Holland’s Spider-Man on the cover, this was undoubtedly our biggest SDCC issue yet. 

Here’s how to join the Den of Geek Collector’s Club and secure your copy:

• Gold Edition: Available only through our premium Gold yearly subscription (Limited to 100).
• Holo Edition: Variant subscriber cover run for Friends of Geek subs tier.
• Base Edition: Free with purchase at select stores within the Den of Geek Comic Store network nationwide and was distributed for free to fans in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter via the Den of Geek brand ambassador team.

Now, please enjoy our recap of San Diego Comic-Con 2026.

Den of Geek Studio Interview

Air Bud Returns

Iconic Air Bud golden retriever Buddy made an unforgettable entrance at the Den of Geek studio in San Diego decked out in his Timber-Wolves basketball jersey, brand new sneakers, and in tail with his best bud and director Robert Vince. After Buddy’s incredible modeling in the photo booth and listening skills he can officially be crowned the “good boy” of actors. 

Vince discussed the excitement of coming back to the Air Bud franchise and the good memories tied into making movies over the last 30 years. The story Vince has crafted for Buddy’s return is a special one, inspired by paralympics wheelchair basketball. Vince has always been inspired by stories featuring the “underdogs” (no pun intended), so Buddy’s newest basketball teammate is Jacob, played by Aydin Artis, a wheelchair-user and basketball player on team RMF

Air Bud fans are truly in for a treat with his return and bond between his new friend Jacob. Vince has captured another classic story giving the underdogs the spotlight and proving that your goals are not far from reach. Stay tuned for Air Bud Returns coming January 22, 2027. – Grace Schmidt

Batman: Caped Crusader

Following a successful first season on Prime Video, producers of the noir-tinged animated series Batman: Caped Crusader had a clear strategy for season 2.

“Kick it up a notch,” showrunner James Tucker says. “More of everything: more action, more mystery, more messed up Batman stuff. We thought ‘how can we pull him as far away from humanity as possible?’”

“It’s a story of a man learning to be a person,” adds new season 2 head writer Geoffrey Thorne about the show’s Bruce Wayne (played by Midnight Mass’ Hamish Linklater). “He learns more about what it’s like to be a person among other people, but in the process, fights a lot of other people in spandex and blows stuff up.”

Developed by Tucker and Bruce Timm, who created beloved ‘90s animation Batman: The Animated Series, Caped Crusader borrows the Art Deco aesthetics from its acclaimed predecessor while moving the story more explicitly into a 1940s timeline filled with organized crime and sleazy, self-dealing politicians for Linklater’s Bruce Wayne to deal with. Now, in season 2, Batman will have to confront an even more challenging force. That’s right: it’s Joker time.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. It’s no big deal really,” Mathew Needham (House of the Dragon) jokes about stepping into the role of comics’ most iconic villain “It’s still surreal. It’s so strange. The audition was very clear and had two instructions [for how to voice the Joker]: European and ludicrous.”

European? Ludicrous? Count us in. – Alec Bojalad

Batman: Knightfall

Michael Mando, supervising producer Rick Morales, and producer Jim Krieg discussed Batman: Knightfall – Part 1: Knightfall, the first installment in an animated film trilogy adapting the classic 1993-04 comic storyline, which follows Batman as he’s pushed to his physical and mental limits while confronting the escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum freed by Bane. 

Asked how the dense source material was balanced for both longtime readers and newcomers, Krieg acknowledged the challenge of stepping outside personal familiarity with the comics. “That is a challenge because most of us who work on [the film series] know this material really well. You do have to take a step back and not assume the audience is going to know who these characters are.” 

Morales added that the team had to boil down decades of storytelling to its core to achieve equilibrium, explaining, “There’s so much in the series that was done over multiple years with a bunch of different creators that we want to try to get as much of that into [the films] as we can, but you have to distill it down to what’s the essence of the story.”

For Mando, voicing Bane opposite of Batman carried personal weight. “Batman’s been a part of my life since a very young age, and I had one of the biggest geek out moments of my career when I saw the playback of what we had done with Bane,” Mando said. “That’s when it hit me, and I said, ‘That’s my childhood, and it’s just beautiful.’” 

Mando also spoke to what makes Bane compelling beyond the muscle. “Bane is not a villain, his point of view is actually very intelligent and relevant, and he says ‘Listen, Batman runs the underworld, the underworld is chaotic. Bruce Wayne runs the overworld, the overworld is corrupt. Something in the power structure needs to change. I need to break the power structure.’ And he’s not completely wrong in that.” 

Knightfall arrives to break the internet digitally on August 25, 2026. – Isabella Ardetto

Blade Runner 2099

The Blade Runner story is continuing 50 years after the events of sequel Blade Runner 2048 in Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099. The series is set in a post-war world in which humanity’s greatest fear is now reality: Replicants are the dominant species. The audience follows Cora (Hunter Schafer) a human on the run disguising herself amongst the replicants and Olen (Michelle Yeoh), a replicant at the end of her life. 

Shaffer and Yeoh’s respect for one another and the franchise was evident in the Den of Geek studio at Comic-Con, and Yeoh credits showrunner Silka Luisa’s passion for the successful execution of the series “I think my biggest thanks would be to Silka, who imagined this new TV series which gave us a very good and solid premise to play on.” 

Schafer and Yeoh gave the studio a look into their characters’ interesting partnership at the center of this series. Yeoh explained that Hunter’s character blends in with the replicants “because she’s been running away so much, she’s lost her humanity in some way that even Olen cannot detect anything in her anymore.” 

The set design played a huge role in fully immersing the actors and their characters into the previously established setting, but Luisa brought her own life to it by making the weather hot and sticky, different from the previous movies gloomy and cold weather. “There’s something about having very volatile weather. You know, it’s like it creates this sense of unease all the time.”

More is yet to be revealed leading up to the show’s release date on November 25 but the sneak peaks shown at Comic-Con and their further input on the series at the Den of Geek studio leaves fans highly eager to step back into this franchise. – GS

Brian Volk-Weiss

Nacelle Company founder Brain Volk-Weiss came to the Den of Geek studio at San Diego Comic-Con with a lot up his sleeve.

When it comes to creating toys for Star Trek, Volk-Weiss is vocal that he makes the toys he has always wanted to see on the shelves, “I’m friends with a lot of people that either work at toy companies or even own toy companies and what I would say to them for years, ‘Why don’t you do Captain Garrett? Why don’t you do Captain Jellico? I said that for years and, right or wrong, no one listened to me, which was very good for us.”

And Volk-Weiss was right: the fan response has been overwhelmingly supportive. “We came here fully loaded, this is the first time we’ve actually had product at a convention to sell, and we’re sold out and we have two days left,” he says.

Volk-Weiss has gone from making toy documentaries to selling the toys at Comic-Con and he describes witnessing that instant gratification, “It doesn’t feel real. I hope next year or a year from now, if I’m lucky enough they want to talk to me, I won’t keep saying this over and over again how surreal it is.” – GS

Carrie

As coined by Den of Geek‘s own Sam Stone, Carrie (2026) creator Mike Flanagan is bringing blazing heat to Prime Video, adding another cataclysmic addition to his “Armageddon Era.” Stepping away a bit from the original Stephen King novel, Flanagan is making his own spin on the iconic traumatized teenage telepath with a cast of rising female stars and some iconic horror OGs. 

Summer H. Howell stars as the tale’s iconic protagonist Carrie White with Samantha Sloyan playing Carrie’s religious fanatic mother, Margaret White. Amber Midthunder plays Carrie’s gym teacher, Miss Desjardin; Alison Thornton plays Chris Hargensen, Carrie’s primary antagonist; Siena Agudong is Sue Snell; Joel Oulette is Tommy Ross, Sue’s boyfriend and Carrie’s prom date; and beloved Scream star Matthew Lillard plays Principal Grayle. 

The eight-episode miniseries will take a new look at the source material, reimagining it for a modern Chamberlain, Maine, and examining how the landscape of social media changes the dynamics of Carrie’s bullying.

When talking with Den of Geek, Howell explained that she intentionally stayed away from the previous incarnations of Carrie to stay true to the new version they were creating, relying on Flanagan’s writing and the chemistry of the cast to portray a modern teenage girl who deals with bullies, love, and public school all while having special abilities. 

“I mainly went off of the writing, and the writing was so good,” Howell says. “I felt so connected to Carrie from the start. She starts off so optimistic and curious about the world because she’s finally stepping into it. And I mean, it’s a public high school. She has no idea what she’s getting into. So yeah, just, just working with the girls and feeding off of their [energy]. It felt easy.” 

Sloyan also talked about playing a vastly different Margaret White than has been previously portrayed; instead of being a religious fanatic, Margaret will be a mother who genuinely worries, protects, and advocates for her daughter. 

“This is a new Margaret. This Margaret actually loves [Carrie], she’s her protector, she’s her advocate, and I feel like that just changes the whole game of who Margaret is,” Sloyan says. “I think both of us didn’t want to just bring you the same character or a similar character.” 

Carrie will make her next bloody on-screen appearance on Prime Video on October 7. – Nyla Gilbert

Coyote vs. Acme

After being scrapped by Warner Bros. Discovery as a tax write-off, Dave Green’s Coyote vs. Acme is set to hit theaters August 28, documenting the explosive lawsuit between one Wylie E. Coyote and major Looney Tunes tech conglomerate Acme. Green, along with To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before star Lana Condor, who plays law student Paige, talked to Den of Geek about the comedic hybrid animated movie’s journey to the big screen.

The chaotic feel-good film stars Will Forte as an attorney who takes on Coyote as a client and faces the public pressure and private pressures of going against a major tech giant whose technology isn’t just untrustworthy, but nefarious. John Cena plays Acme’s corporate counsel and does everything in his power to stop Coyote from exposing Acme’s felonious catastrophes.

Green, inspired by the 1990 New Yorker short story Coyote v. Acme, stuck true to the source material to give viewers a creative and honorable representation of the Looney Tunes’ iconic “super-genius” resource-hunting schemer. 

“It really set the tone for the whole project, and I think the thing that made that piece so great was that it really did honor the tone of the original Looney Tunes,” Green says. “We were really taking notes from that piece, and taking notes from the original Chuck Jones shorts the whole time and really doing our best to honor that kind of wry sarcasm, the kind of blunt animation style that was like quick and snappy and violent and funny, so it really, it really set the tone the whole time, that first piece.”

Fans are in for a treat, with this fun and adventurous new addition to the Tunes verse that gives heartwarming and emotional meaning to the life of Wylie E. Coyote. Coyote vs. Acme is set to crash into theaters on August 28. – NG

The Cycle

Deborah Ann Woll and writer-director Jordan Downey joined Den of Geek for a studio interview to discuss Shudder’s upcoming supernatural horror-thriller, The Cycle. 

The Cycle follows Woll as Meg, who investigates her estranged father’s disappearance after his body turns up 36 years later at the scene of a bizarre crime. It falls to Meg to confront her family’s secrets as her father’s dark past unravels before her, unearthing the life he kept hidden for so long. 

Woll described Meg as defined above all by her curiosity. “She is a curious person. She’s an investigative person, and I think, in a way, a mystery is her greatest vulnerability, because she never lets a question go unanswered,” she says. 

To prepare, Woll and the team consulted real forensic anthropologists, and came away struck by their objective relationships with death. “Their perspective on death is kind of matter-of-fact. There isn’t much fear or unknown wrapped up in it, and it’s a little rock and roll, you know? It was metalForesenic anthropology is totally metal.” 

The choice to root the story in Meg’s expertise also shaped how Downey built suspense for the film. Rather than letting the audience get ahead of her, he kept their understanding directly tied to Meg’s. “We’re ideally not too far ahead of her when we’re watching the movie, so that as she is uncovering things, we are uncovering things,” Downey says. “I find that more compelling, so that we’re all in on it together. It’s a shared experience with the crowd and the people on the screen as well.” 

Follow Meg as she endeavors to uncover the truth of her father’s death and life when The Cycle releases October 23, 2026, exclusively on Shudder. – IA

Dark Matter

No matter the medium, the multiverse continues to be one of the most captivating concepts of the 21st century. Now Apple TV’s Dark Matter season 2 is taking audiences to multi-dimensional new heights. The cast of the show, based on Blake Crouch’s best-selling novel, spoke to Den of Geek about their experiences taking on these challenging characters, while also telling deeply profound human stories about identity and family. 

“It’s a very exciting show, and it keeps you on your toes,” Joel Edgerton, who plays Jason Dessen, says. “And I think through that it gets to constantly return to exploring very real human questions that we ask daily.”

The show centers around Jason Dessen, a Chicago physicist whose life is upended when he is abducted by an alternate-dimension version of himself, known as Jason 2. Jason discovers that his alternate version has made different decisions, flipping his world upside down and threatening the safety of his wife Daniella (Jennifer Connelly) and son Charlie (Oakes Fegley). Season 2 picks up where the first season left off, showing the family now on the run from the Jasons while having to figure out a way to survive. 

The cast is tasked with playing multiple versions of themselves, while also navigating interacting with multiple versions of each other while challenging.

“I’ve heard many of the cast say why we got on board is for that very reason — take one character and look at all the different dimensions… look at what they might be like under different circumstances and under different pressure. That has always been one of the joys of it,” Edgerton says. 

This season has given cast members even more dynamics to explore, including personal conflicts that, while challenging, have left the actors gratified. 

“It was a really rewarding experience,” Connelly says. “I really loved the scenes, and I loved being able to dive into the marriage a little bit more in this season and explorewhat she was going through personally and how the fallout of all these experiences impacted the marriage.”

Answering and exploring questions about humanity in ways that would never happen in real life, at least in the foreseeable future, the cast does an amazing job showcasing how our decisions mold who we become. 

Dark Matter season 2 begins streaming on Apple TV on August 28. – NG

Dugout Dads

Fans of the classic 1993 film The Sandlot are finally getting a win; a free YouTube television show directed by Patrick Renna will be coming to the platform August 28. Starring several of the original cast members including Renna, who played Ham in the original Sandlot, Dugout Dads is a retelling of its source material for the modern era of youth sports.  

Dugout Dads follows Renna, who plays a frustrated dad taking over the coaching duties of his son’s baseball team and to encourage its young players to focus more on having fun and less on winning. He and his wife, played by Danielle Fishel, confront a new challenge keeping this goal from coming to fruition: their fellow parents. Made up of several five-minute episodes that will be released directly weekly on Renna’s YouTube, Dugout Dads promises to be a romp about rowdy parents, twisting the original concept of The Sandlot for a new sports landscape. 

Renna and Fishel joined Den of Geek for a studio interview where they discussed the nostalgia of reuniting The Sandlot, what real-life inspiration they drew on for Dugout Dads, and what fans can look forward to when the series makes its debut. 

“You want your kids to do well, so you take it a little too serious,” Renna says. “You want to watch them grow, and I think, you know, when, when you watch your kids, they are hopefully just having fun, and they sort of leave it behind them the second they get off the field. The parents, on the other hand, don’t, so it kind of was a show that needed to be made.” – Jackson McCoy

Eternally Yours

The TV pilot process goes pretty smoothly most of the time. Step 1: Somebody writes a script. Step 2: A network likes that script and commissions a pilot episode. 3. The final result either makes it to series or ends up in the pilot dustbin of history alongside Mockingbird Lane and Peyton Place: The Next Generation. CBS’ latest comedy Eternally Yours, however, isn’t like all those other pilots. 

First written in 2015 by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, Eternally Yours was well-received but its story about a vampire couple experiencing the 500-year itch didn’t feel quite fresh enough in the wake of the release of 2014 vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows. The project was revived during a podcast taping in 2019 only to be hamstrung once again by a near-identical foe: the TV adaptation of What We Do in the Shadows. 

Now, following multiple false starts, two Hollywood work stoppages, and a pandemic, the little pilot that could is finally able to see the light of day (or more accurately: the light of the moon for its characters’ safety). And it’s largely thanks to the success of another supernatural CBS comedy produced by Port and Wiseman.

“I did a podcast called Dead Pilots Society,” Eternally Yours star Ed Weeks explains. “My buddy Andrew Reich does staged readings of pilots that were never picked up, and this was one of them. I kind of thought I did a terrible job. Then seven years later it showed up again in my inbox. I guess, in the interim, Ghosts had become a huge success and CBS gave Eternally Yours another chance. It’s been a dream.” 

When stopping by the Den of Geek studio to discuss their show’s journey, stars Weeks, Allegra Edwards, Helen J. Shen, and Parker Young were sure to pay proper homage to their ghostly ancestors… even if Young objected to the behavior he witnessed from the Ghosts cast towards yours truly in the preceding interview.

“They’re our big brother. We’re excited to be here but I was nervous so I was going to watch what they did [in their Den of Geek interview]. And I watched them be so unprofessional with you! Like they were just cracking jokes, talking about being pantless and stuff. They haven’t been helpful at all.”

Thank you, Mr. Young. I appreciate the support. [Important Editor’s Note: That was all a joke, obviously. We had a blast with the cast of Ghosts, as you are about to discover in 3… 2… 1…] – AB

Ghosts

As it is wont to do, CBS comedy Ghosts ended its fifth season on a major cliffhanger. Viewers could only watch in horror as fan-favorite specter Pete (Richie Moriarty) slowly disappeared into nothingness, having seemingly been “sucked off” to paranormal parts unknown. That’s why, when it came time to speak with actors Utkarsh Ambudkar, Román Zaragoza, and Asher Grodman about the show’s incoming sixth season, we just had to ask the question on everyone’s minds: how did Knicks superfan Jay Arondekar (Ambudkar) watch his team win the NBA Finals?

“Probably on his phone on the toilet,” Ambudkar says. “That’s probably what he was doing – hiding in some nook and cranny of the mansion where WiFi actually is connected, silently screaming because he’s the only Knicks fan in the house.”

OK so we didn’t ask about Pete. Sorry about that. But if it’s any consolation, the Ghosts team assured us they wouldn’t have answered any questions about that anyway. What they did answer, however, was what it is like to act on a show in which their incorporeal characters can’t interact with the environment around them. 

“I haven’t used props for the last six years or even interacted with set pieces. I’m terrified to work on other projects,” Zaragoza says.

Adds Grodman: “I did this episode of Bookie where the shot was simply to just move a suitcase from one car to another car. For me it was like a three-act play because I hadn’t held anything in so long.”

Will a ghost finally be able to touch an item? Tune in to season 6 to find out! – AB

Grimm

NBC’s Grimm celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, with the cast reuniting at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 for a panel to support their still energetic fan base. The cast joined Den of Geek at San Diego Comic-Con for an interview about the urban fantasy show’s legacy and updates on announced new projects. Grimm stars David Giuntoli as Nick Burkhardt, a Portland detective who discovers he is the latest in his family to take on the mantle of “Grimm,” a lineage of guardians tasked with keeping the balance between humans and supernatural creatures called “wesen.”

Alongside Giuntoli, Silas Weir Mitchell (Monroe), Russell Hornsby (Hank Griffin), Sasha Roiz (Captain Sean Renard), Reggie Lee (Sgt. Wu), Elizabeth “Bitsie” Tulloch (Eve/Julliette Silverton), and Bree Turner (Rosalee Calvert) thanked fans for their long lasting support of the show, and spoke on the long lasting friendships that they have carried with them nine years after the show’s ending. 

“I think that there’s always a dream that the cast that you fall in love with, they’re all friends in real life, and I don’t think that’s always true. In our case it really is, and what you’re seeing on the screen is genuine love,” Ginutoli says. “And we wanna say, I would imagine we all do, thank you so sincerely to the fans.”

While fans can enjoy seeing their favorite castmembers back in the whimsical spotlight; there is an update on the Grimm movie in development at Peacock that was announced a year and a half ago now. “It hasn’t been greenlit. We don’t know what’s happening,” Tulloch says.

It seems as though fans must keep the momentum going to hopefully see this joyful cast back on their screens, maybe with even more Grimm projects in the future. – NG

House of R

No disrespect intended to any of the talented artists who stop by Den of Geek studio to talk shop but it’s always extra special when our fellow geeks come over… especially podcasting geeks. Joke about the medium all you like but podcasts can be intimate experiences – one-sided conversations about the topics you most love from the voices you grow accustomed to and fond of. That’s why it was a particular joy to welcome in pop culture experts Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin, hosts of Spotify’s Ringer-verse podcast House of R, among many other Ringer pursuits. 

Mal, Jo, and an increasingly giddy interviewer discussed the Comic-Con experience and the state of nerd culture. Topics included the hype for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2, predictions for the upcoming Marvel panel (of which we were all incredibly wrong), and even a proposed MLB baseball trade. Suddenly that one-sided podcast conversation wasn’t so one-sided at all! – AB

Ice Cream Man – Eli Roth

Eli Roth visited the Den of Geek studio to discuss his new horror film coming August 7, Ice Cream Man. Roth got the inspiration for Ice Cream Man during the Cabin Fever press tour.

“It was during the summer, I saw an ice cream truck, and that music just makes you want to eat ice cream,” he says. “We don’t know who that dude is, that guy could be a serial killer. I thought ‘what if he was like the Pied Piper and somehow the combo of the music and the ice cream could program the children to kill?'”

Ice Cream Man follows in the footsteps of witchcraft cinema. Roth says he was thinking about how “stick break horror” in movies like Obsession and Weapons have become a subgenre that “works so well.” And it seems for this movie the stick break for these children is the ice cream man’s music. He admits leaning more into the supernatural elements in this horror film because, “especially with kids going crazy, there has to be a slight supernatural element for you to enjoy it.”

The movie is an exciting new paranormal adventure for Eli Roth adding a horror twist into a previously beloved childhood memory and may give the classic ice cream truck tune an all new creepy undertone. – GS

Mayday

Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein sat down at the Den of Geek studio to discuss their new Apple Original film, Mayday. The action-comedy stars Ryan Reynolds as a Navy pilot stranded behind enemy lines during the Cold War who forms an unlikely alliance with a gruff ex-KGB agent, played by Kenneth Branagh, to survive. 

Asked what he hoped to bring to the action comedy genre, Daley (who co-directed previous action comedies Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves alongside Goldstein) pointed to a lack of care in recent entries. “Comedy has gotten such a bad rep lately, and I think part of that is because it has been done somewhat lazily, especially in the action-comedy world,” he says “It was really important to us to bring the amount of time and work that we would spend on either genre by itself. It just requires a lot more planning, a lot more prep, but ultimately I think it pays off.” 

Adding to that sentiment, Goldstein expressed being proud that the film exists in an industry increasingly resistant to originals. “The studios these days are not eager to make things without IP behind them, without a book or a comic book or a video game,” he says. “This was just an idea that we had, and somehow we got it turned into this giant movie, and that’s exciting in this climate to be able to do that.” 

Mayday crash-lands on Apple TV globally September 4, 2026. – IA

Onslaught

The incoming subversive horror action thriller directed by Adam Wingard is set to be a bloodsoaked hit. Wingard, joined by cast members Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Rebecca Hall, and Drew Starkey, spoke at length about their individual inspirations for the film and the worldbuilding that went into its creation.

“Well, you know, with this film I really wanted to reinvent the slasher genre in a way that I think the closest thing I’ve ever seen was like Terminator,” Wingard said. “Normally the slasher villains are kind of serial killer adjacent and for me as a filmmaker…some of my favorite movies are things like Halloween; I love the aesthetic, that John Carpenter thing, he’s obviously a big inspiration. But I’m looking at ‘What’s the modern-day version of that?’”

In Onslaught, a small group of genetically engineered super soldiers break loose from a government lab and raise hell across the desert. It’s up to a former U.S. Army sniper, played by Arjona, to stop them and protect her young daughter.

Despite the very inhuman forces attempting to wreak havoc on the trailer park Arjona’s character Celeste has found herself in, the cast emphasized the movie has a very human core. Onslaught explores historical injustices, the military industrial complex, and the horrors of war.

“(Celeste’s) post-traumatic stress has taken a huge toll on her, and I don’t think she wants to pass that down to her child, so she believes staying a little bit back is helpful,” Arjona said. “I think she’s trying really, really, really hard, until, you know, we have these people coming into our trailer park and they did mess with the wrong trailer park.” – JM

Ray Gunn

Few artistic collaborations have proven as fruitful as the one between writer/director/animator Brad Bird and composer Michael Giacchino. Together the duo have provided the sights and sounds of some of the century’s most beloved films like The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Now they’re teaming up again for Ray Gunn, an epic retrofuturistic neo noir that Bird has had rattling around his head for three decades. 

“People are surprised that I could stay interested in an idea that long. But if something is interesting, I always find it interesting,” Bird tells us during his and Giacchino’s trip to the Den of Geek studio. 

And Ray Gunn is nothing if not interesting. Starring Sam Rockwell as the titular ray gun-wielding private detective and arriving to Netflix this December, the project brings together many of its creator and composer’s shared sensibilities…including an appreciation for a very particular aesthetic.  

“Art Deco is kind of a utopian thing,” Bird says. “There’s something romantic about it and I just think that it’s time was too short. Ray Gunn is asking ‘What if World War II didn’t happen and Art Deco just kept going? Buildings got to be a mile high, cars could fly, and jetpacks were something everyone had.’ I thought it would be interesting to have utopia and still have desperate characters and an underbelly with corruption. Those two ideas were rubbing up against each other in a good way.”

“It’s in the same way that we approached Ratatouille,” Giacchino adds about the film’s music. “You go into the kitchen, see what you have available, and make anything you can with the ingredients you have. Go into the noir store – get a side of action, maybe a little bit of comedy for dessert, and sprinkle some theremin in there as well.”

A little bit of sci-fi, a little bit of art deco, a little bit of theremin – that’s a Ratatouille-quality recipe right there. – AB   

Robert Kirkman

Co-creator of the Invincible franchise and prolific comic writer Robert Kirkman joined Den of Geek in the interview studio to talk about a wide range of current projects, including more than just the expansion of Invincible into the video game world. Announcements about the Energon Universe (including a new Transformers comic arc) as well as the world of Invincible filtered through excitement about his new comic series Terminal. 

The first issue of Terminal hit shelves the first day of Comic-Con, bringing completely new characters to the thousands of attendees and fans of Image Comics everywhere. Kirkman shared the inspirations he and series co-writer Joe Casey pulled from for their new story.

“The ‘90s era of the X-Men, when you had Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee and Chris Claremont and Marc Silvestri and everybody firing on all cylinders. There were guys like Andy Kubert; we had Arthur Adams in the mix, and then later on David Finch doing things. There was just this really complex ornate story that was going on, but it had so many different characters and separate storylines, and there was such a deep mythology at work there and it was just really special,”

Kirkman assured fans of Invincible that they had much to look forward to in the near future, ranging from comics to the expanding Invincible VS world to the hugely successful TV show. 

“If you saw the conclusion of season 4, and that truce between Thragg and Invincible, you’re very aware that the Viltrumites are now on Earth, and I think that there’s unlimited possibilities with that revelation into the story,” Kirkman says. – JM

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

The cast and executive producers of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, including Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, Celia Rose Gooding, Paul Wesley, Melissa Navia, Christina Chong, Akiva Goldsman, and Henry Alonso Myers, landed in the studio to discuss season 4, which premiered on July 23 on Paramount+ and continues the prequel’s build toward the crew fans know from The Original Series. 

Asked about playing a younger, rawer version of Kirk, Wesley said the goal is uncovering the vulnerabilities beneath the icon. “That’s the whole point of this prequel for my character. It is to dig into the vulnerabilities of Kirk to understand why he is the Kirk that we know from TOS, who is a much more poised, decision-driven man,” he says. “He seems infallible in a way, and we wanted to show his vulnerabilities and the things that led him to embrace that sort of shell that he creates.” 

Peck spoke about Spock’s evolving dynamic with Kirk, praising the chemistry he and Wesley naturally share off-screen. “We get to bring a lot of our off-screen chemistry to screen,” he said. “I enjoy the job of scrutinizing Kirk and his rash decision-making and impulsive behavior. Kirk has this belief and trust in Spock right away, and he’s kind of amused. Spock’s very skeptical and uncertain of what this is.”

New episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds beam down to Paramount+ every Thursday. – IA

Stuart Fails to Save the Universe

Anything is possible in the multiverse. Even a spinoff of a popular network sitcom that recasts a deep background character as a timeline-hopping hero. That’s the premise of HBO Max’s Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, which plucks Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman), The Big Bang Theory’s mild-mannered owner of The Comic Center of Pasadena, and sends him off on an unlikely multiversal adventure to rescue his girlfriend Denise (Lauren Lapkus).

When stopping by Den of Geek studio, the series star reflected on what it was like to move from the bottom of the callsheet to the center of building-sized billboards for his own show. 

“It hit me on the first day of work when I showed up to the studio and all the little golf carts driving around had my character’s name on it. ‘I was like ‘holy moly, can I even handle this?’ But it really is such an ensemble show. Just being able to work with these guys who I’ve known for years it became about how fun it was to work on the show,” Sussman says.

Similarly excited was Lapkus, an accomplished comedic improviser who appreciates the “yes and” storytelling opportunities the multiverse has to offer. 

“It’s so fun! One of the things I really love about this show is that every episode is so different from the one before. We meet my character in different universes, so there’s variations on who she is. I really, really enjoyed that as an improviser and getting to work with these guys who are all so funny.”

Of course, access to the multiverse means that plenty of other Big Bang Theory favorites can stop by for a high-stakes cameo or two. 

“The [Big Bang Theory] people who came to do the show were so excited to do something weird,” co-creator Bill Prady says. “One of our legacy cast got to do some motion capture work. She was having such a good time that she didn’t want to stop. They said ‘Oh we got it, we got it’ and she was like “No, I’m gonna keep going. I’m having fun.” – AB

Super Troopers 3

The newest film to follow state troopers in Vermont is here and is set to be as outrageous as its predecessors. Super Troopers 3 will be just as raunchy and immature as the cast was all the way back in 2001 when the first film released.

“When people ask us if we’ve matured, generally speaking, we all say no because I think our sense of humor has not matured, and I say that as a compliment to all of us,” Paul Soter said. “But I think we are all a lot further along in life.”

Super Troopers 3 follows the chaos of Farva’s extravagant Indian engagement to Thorny’s sister and Thorny’s subsequent scheming. It reunites the original cast alongside newcomers such as Chace Crawford (of “The Deep” on The Boys fame).

Steve Lemme, who reprises his role as the prankster Mac, said the new film builds on the best parts of the franchise. 

“If this was happening in real life we wouldn’t be helping him break up the wedding, we would be absolutely thrilled that they would say, even in conversations that have nothing to do with it, we’d be like, and by the way, ‘Farva’s sleeping with your sister’ and you’d walk out the door,” Lemme said. “That’s what a real group of friends would do and I think that’s what resonates with the audience is about all the Super Troopers movies, it’s about watching a real group of friends go through life together.” – JM

Around the Con

Apple TV

Apple TV made its star-studded San Diego Comic-Con debut this year with a bang! Premiering and promoting brand new seasons of shows such as Silo, Dark Matter, and Widow’s Bay. It also announced some brand new films driving in this fall such as Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley’s genre-bending action packed buddy comedy, Mayday. Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh star in this genre-bending action packed buddy comedy on September 4 on Apple TV. 

Mattel’s Matchbox the Movie premiered a trailer for the new film during the convention as well. The action film details lead actor, John Cena, as an ex-CIA agent who returns back to his hometown with his childhood friends, and lead to be tasked with an international pursuit in saving the world. Alongside Cena, fans can expect to see Arturo Castro, Jessica Biel, Sam Richardson, Teyonah Parris, Corey Stoll, Bill Camp, Danai Gurira and Golshifteh Farahani when the film premieres on October 9. – Matthias Agganis

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence

Clad in identical tomato-themed letterman jackets that have me kicking myself for not requesting a photo (see above for a promo image), three stars of upcoming comedy horror flick Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence caught up with Den of Geek at this year’s con. The topic that the trio – Dan Bakkedahl, Myrna Velasco, and Noor Razooky – wanted to discuss? The deadly serious business of killer tomatoes and how they attack.

Dan Bakkedahl: “I read the script and realized, ‘oh, this is an attempt to expose the cover-up, to spread the truth about the dangers [of killer tomaotes].’ I hope this doesn’t affect my career trying to get the truth out there, but you do what you have to.”

Myrna Velasco: “We need every single person who is willing and capable to stomp a tomato to please make that your mission as a human being.”

Noor Razooky: “It’s us against them.”

From indie cult classic in 1978 to brave, unflinching documentary in 2026 – the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes franchise has truly come a long way. – AB

Bear McCreary

Composer Bear McCreary is no stranger to scoring epic fictional works. He’s worked on the music for Outlander, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and God of War. Now, he’s combining the symphonic and the heavy for his second studio album, The Singularity: Ekleipsis.

McCreary talked about working with rock stars like Duff McKagan and bringing his passion for film scoring to a studio album, focusing on his love for melody and narrative in music. 

“It’s incredible the power that music has and melody is a big part of how that works,” McCreary says. “So you make those assignments. Look at the God of War scores. When that first was unveiled to the world in 2016, when we were rebooting God of War, Kratos walks into the screen and you hear ‘bom bom bom.’ To the point of almost being a joke, like, literally every time he walks in a room, I do that. I am not subtle about it, right?

“It’s conditioning,” McCreary continues. “It teaches you that melody teaches you something about him. It sticks to him, and then you can use it in other contexts because you’ll always have all those memories.” 

He also discussed his previous work bridging the gap between medieval aesthetics and modern pop artists, avoiding AI in film and television, and his upcoming score on the new season of Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. 

“I want to write music for the people of Númenor, for the Harfoots, for Sauron, for Gandalf, and I want to write music that is meaningful to me, that lives up to my standard and makes me feel something,” McCreary says. “And if I do that, I feel confident it will make other people feel something, but that is all I have to put blinders on to the rest.” – JM

Bill Sienkiewicz

“At one point in time, every one of these was the most important piece in the world to me.”

Ahead of the release of Bill Sienkiewicz: That Polish Guy, the documentary movie about his life and career as an artist, Bill Sienkiewicz reflected on his celebrated work in comic books. Sitting down with us, he shared his personal inspirations, offered insight on his creative process, and reflected on his own multimedia legacy and growing influence.

“People would ask me early on when I first started what my drugs of choice were because they thought my work was just so crazy. It was disconcerting for them to hear that the work was the drug.”

Sienkiewicz also revealed the origins of the documentary and how it contrasted his own tendencies not to look to the past but instead focus on the here and now. – Sam Stone

The Guild: Reunion Movie with Felicia Day

Felicia Day’s 2007 web series The Guild has gathered many fans throughout the years who have grown attached to her story and goal to “change the stereotype of gamers in Hollywood.” Now, 20 years since its debut, The Guild is making a reunion movie with Day returning to her beloved story and more excited than ever. 

The movie’s Kickstarter has raised over 3 million dollars, which is the most any movie has ever raised in its first 24 hours on the platform.

“We did a 12-hour live stream at the launch and just realizing that people were showing up, and they were showing up in incredible numbers with incredible support, at one point I just started sobbing,” Day says.

Day looks back on the memories made in the last 20 years with so much pride for her story and the viewers’ support of it. One of her favorite moments being the outpouring support she got in 2008 for her viral music video, “Do You Want to Date My Avatar.” That year Comic-Con gave her a small room for her panel, “We were in this small room of 250 people and there were literally, I’m not kidding, 1,000 people outside waiting to get in. It was probably the most electric cool moment I’ve ever had in my life,” she says.

There is no denying that Day has received an overwhelming amount of support for her upcoming project and fans are excited for her to bring her story back to life in The Guild: Ren Faire’d. – GS

Hannah Rose May

Hannah Rose May, Irish model and actress-turned-comics writer behind The Exorcism at 1600 Penn discussed writing Smile: For The Camera, her new series Fatal Fest, and seeing her breakout comic head to film. 

Smile: For The Camera is a 2005-set prequel following international models during Fashion Month in New York, before the events of Smile and Smile 2. May built the series around the franchise’s infamous death toll, but grounded each death in character exploration, explaining, “I wanted to make sure that we were delivering a death every issue…but for them to die, you have to see what’s traumatic to them, what their past trauma is on the surface. It’s not just girl number 3.” 

Her new series, Fatal Fest, follows six emerging horror filmmakers competing at a mysterious festival where the producer’s one rule is that true fear must be experienced firsthand. While no concrete release date has been set, May promises the series will push the horror and gore to the absolute limit. “I hope that you read one issue and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I wasn’t expecting that,” May says. 

Meanwhile, her comic The Exorcism at 1600 Penn, about the first female U.S. president facing a demonic White House, is being adapted into a film by Blumhouse and Atomic Monster, though no release date has been announced for this project either. 

When asked how the film might attract Gen Z, who seem the prime audience for horror now, May explains that the film’s appeal actually spans generations, since viewers can relate to the characters themselves rather than the specifics of their circumstances: “Parents will be able to relate to our first female president, our first gentleman, and Gen Z will be able to relate to being those children and the expectations that are set for you.” – IA

Liam McIntyre and Krizia Bajos

The stars of Sony’s upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine game, Liam McIntyre (Wolverine) and Krizia Bajos (Jean Grey), brought infectious energy to a sit-down interview that covered everything from their impressive careers to changing the landscape of voice acting.

McIntyre, who has played many iconic characters including Spartacus, Weather Wizard, and Aquaman, spoke in depth about how understanding the character is key to some of his most iconic roles. He emphasized that, despite the differences between on-camera and voice performances, the fundamentals of acting remain the same. 

“I think it starts at trying to find the heart of the character, like ‘what are they about? What matters to them?’ You know, it’s their worldview kind of thing,” McIntyre says. “But acting is acting at the end of the day. I started on stage. That’s quite pure and organic You sort of get used to building your imagination and trying to create things. It’s that old cliché of acting is reacting.”

Both McIntyre and Bajos highlighted the importance of collaboration and finding joy in creative work — with strong performance coming from genuine human connection bleeding into their works. McIntyre praised Critical Role in particular, as the group of friends made a multi-million dollar company by connecting through a game of Dungeons & Dragons, which has created a community of loyal and welcoming fans. Bajos’ impressive 181 acting credits include Hulu’s Fright Krewe, which she shared was meaningful to play a nurturing maternal figure who led in a position of high regard in her community, while also being able to honor elements of her Latin American heritage. Fright Krewe stands out for its vibrant animation, nostalgic coming-of-age atmosphere, and supernatural horror elements, blending heartfelt and heart-arching friendships with spooky adventures. It is a truly enjoyable watch. 

Beyond acting, Bajos founded an educational program called Voiceover Camp in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic with the goal of helping aspiring performers to build confidence in their voice acting abilities. What started as informal coaching for friends evolved into a thriving community focused on mentorship, growth, and acceptance. 

“I have a lot of fun on that side, but I will say the community on this side, to me, it is very near and dear to my heart. It’s like where all the beloved weirdos live, and I am 100% one of them. Everybody comes as they are,” Bajos said. “And I love teaching people that they don’t even want to be voice actors. It’s just they want to build more confidence.”

You can check out more of this duo’s amazing chemistry in the upcoming release of Marvel’s Wolverine on September 15. – NG

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had a big presence at San Diego Comic-Con to promote its upcoming third season. And, by all indications, it’s going to be a big third season. We caught up with showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay and many of the series’ stars to talk about the show’s five-year time jump forward to properly settle into the war between Sauron and the Elves and the forging of the One Ring itself. 

“It’s amazing,” Sauron actor Charlie Vickers says of beholding the One Ring. “It took a while through the season before I got to actually hold it. But when I stepped onto that set and I knew I would be forging the Ring, I knew it would be incredibly special. Being able to eventually hold the Ring…it really is the most important prop in the whole universe, right?”

Meanwhile, the One Ring isn’t the only bit of jewelry to play a prominent role this season. Sauron has been busy passing out the Nine Rings of Men to very important, very corruptible mortals. It won’t take long for the magical artifacts to transform them into proto-ringwraiths that the show has dubbed the nazgnagôl.

“We knew this was the season he would start giving them out,” McKay says. “He doesn’t give them to just anyone. He finds the right political place where it’s either a territory or strategic alliance or massive armies. He’s already done some of that before we even start the season. For the other ones we get to see people put on the ring for the first time. You see their bodies undergoing this strange, horrifying, metaphysical process where they’re splitting between the seen world and the unseen world. It’s incredibly painful and they’re screaming. It’s a really cool thing.”

See, this is why we love fantasy. Where else could the excruciating sundering of the human soul between the seen and unseen worlds be called “a really cool thing?” – AB

Sonic the Hedgehog x Godzilla Writer Nick Marino

Writer Nick Marino has long looked forward to the ultimate crossover featured in his comic, Sonic The Hedgehog x Godzilla. At San Diego Comic-Con, Marino dove into his interpretation of the characters and how he went about writing them for this project, especially for a monster like Godzilla who has already been interpreted so many ways.

“I know who my Godzilla I want to see on the page or the screen is, so I’m always starting from that standpoint,” he says. “I was under a unique mission for this story, which was: if you just know Sonic, you’re going to come into this and learn about Godzilla. If you already know Godzilla, you want to see the Godzilla that you care about represented, or if you’re like, ‘why are these two together? I don’t really know them, but let’s find out what happens.’ I want it to feel accessible to you.” 

Despite the amount of support from fans for this crossover, Marino still had a tough time getting this story approved and officially published, “It took a lot of willpower to stick with this project because there’s a lot of people that you need to be patient with.” When asked how he says motivated he replies, “I get so much motivation from playing with themes that fascinate me. So I was so excited to play with the scale dynamics and try to imagine how does this small creature with great speed perceives a creature with great scale?”

“The scale of life” is a concept that Marino has credited as a main inspiration for this comic and he keeps that a theme throughout the first issue, “Sonic has agency in a way Godzilla doesn’t, and that’s why their scale starts to become so interesting. What do you do when a character who is minuscule, probably smaller than the size of a fly, compared to Godzilla, has complete agency and intense capabilities for their size?”

Marino’s first issue captures the fun and chaotic battle between these two very different sized characters and how a conflict between these two will likely play out, though Godzilla in his truest form is yet to appear, Marino’s first issue gives fans confidence the anticipated battle will be everything they have hoped for. – GS

Pan’s Labyrinth

Audiences across the world were enchanted by Pan’s Labyrinth after its release in 2006. The beautiful cinematography, intense and surprisingly grounded story, and incredible performances came together in a perfect symphony of fantasy and war movie sensibilities. Two of the stars of the film — Doug Jones, who plays Faun and The Pale Man, and Ivana Baquero, who plays Ofelia — alongside cinematographer Guillmero Navarro spoke with Den of Geek before the film’s 20th Anniversary Hall H panel Friday. 

Baquero and Jones candidly talked about their performances and the inspirations they pull from, bringing new context to their dually foundational performances. 

“[Director] Guillermo del Toro made it a point to really make sure that I understood the world and so there was a lot of inspiration that we drew from,” Baquero says. “He sent me a bunch of comic books and movies to watch. So I was aware of Ofelia’s world and the pain that she had to go through and I was very much present and connected to the material and (del Toro) guided me through that.”

Navarro also brought more information about his creative machinations behind the camera.

“The movie has different narratives,” Navarro said. “And the real reality we addressed as real reality in the fascist world and in the people’s fighting world. Since we had another narrative to take care of we had to differentiate them very well and in going through one to the other, we ended up finding the tools or the way to, to navigate that, you know.  A lot of it is in the color palette, for instance. A lot of it is in the things that we fade in and fade out.” – JM

Todd McFarlane

“I just want a cool movie and if that means I don’t sell a single T-shirt, that’s okay, what do I care?”

Todd McFarlane provides a full look at what he’s been working on, including the upcoming prequel comic book series Spawn 77, reflecting his own initial designs of the hellish superhero. McFarlane also teases what fans can expect from his prolific company McFarlane Toys and its new line of figures that go above and beyond other contemporary toys. Finally, McFarlane provides an update on the long-gestating Spawn movie and explains why Jamie Foxx is still the perfect actor to play his iconic superhero.

“The next couple of years, we’ve got lots to start planning for.” – SS

VeeFriends

The ever-growing collectible “VeeFriends” brand was a smash hit with convention goers this week. This described cross between Pokémon and Sesame Street offered many exclusive offerings inside “PSA’s” booth on the show floor, with many of them selling-out within opening hours. Adamant fans of the brand could take home goodies such as a limited-run, SDCC-exclusive, PSA graded mystery box featuring the IP’s many characters as potential prizes.

One such prize was a copy of Issue #13 of the VeeFriends comic book series, co-founded by series executive creative director, DJ Coffman. He himself was making the rounds at the convention, organizing and showing up for fan meet-ups and signings. His presence was extremely personable and made its imprint on the legacy of VeeFriend and what the brand’s future may hold. – MA

Yaga

Den of Geek attended press conference with Yaga showrunner and executive producer Kat Sandler, along with cast members Noah Reid and Clark Backo. Set to premiere in October on AMC+, the eight-episode half-hour drama reimagines the myth of Baba Yaga as a contemporary mystery thriller. 

Set in a small coastal town, the show follows private investigator Rapp (Reid) as he arrives to uncover the mysterious disappearance of a young heir to a powerful fisher while finding himself at odds with a local detective, an enigmatic professor, and a tangle of secrets and ancient magic. 

Asked what drew her to reclaiming Baba Yaga as, in her words, “an incendiary feminist antihero,” in this cultural moment, Sandler pointed to the folklore figure’s rare distinction of having a name at all.

“Baba Yaga always has a name. She’s always named. It’s not like the Wicked Witch of the West, or the one from Hansel and Gretel, or The White Witch. I feel like witches are so often defined by geography or colors,” she said. “[Yaga] is women reclaiming a story that has always been told a certain way about them. So the ‘wicked old witch’ is really getting a voice to retell the story in her words.” – IA

Panels

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender – Nyla Gilbert

Nearly two decades after we were introduced to the four nations and the disappearance of a certain young air nomad, San Diego Comic-Con gave a spotlight to Avatar Studios’ upcoming projects, including the recently released Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender film on Paramount+ and an upcoming series, Avatar: Seven Havens, starring a new avatar. 

Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and director Lauren Montgomery joined the film’s cast, Jessica Matten (Katara), Eric Nam (Aang), Román Zaragoza (Sokka), Dionne Quan (Toph), Steven Yeun (Zuko) and Dave Bautista (Tagah), on a panel to discuss the production of the film and the state of the Avatar universe. With the recent boom in 3D animation, the creators talked about their decision to stick to the 2D animation style that the series is known for. 

“One of the first things that we talked about was what the medium was going to be, and no one told us, but we just assumed [3D]. I guess that’s what we’ll do,” Konietzko said. “We started trying to figure it out. But then one day it just hit me. I was like, ‘What are we doing?’ This is Avatar. This is a love letter to Japanese anime. This needs to stay 2D. These characters need to be hand-drawn.”

The cast and crew discussed in depth how to stay true to the original material, creating something that feels like a continuation of the franchise while remaining fresh and captivating. Bringing in new cultural and narrative devices, like the new Avatarian language, fans were also introduced to the next avatar to be given their own series. 

Avatar: Seven Havens follows a young earthbender who discovers she is the next avatar after Korra, who is said to have failed the world in a calamity that merged the spirit world with Earth, creating a dangerous reality that has turned the mantle of the avatar into a destroyer rather than a savior. The story will catch up with the young avatar and her long-lost twin sister as they investigate their mysterious origins and save humanity before society collapses. – NG

Blade Runner 2099

The Blade Runner 2099 panel was hosted by Josh Hortowitz and featured cast members Hunter Schafer, Michele Yeoh, showrunner Silka Luisa, and executive producers Broderick Johnson, and Andrew Kosove. 

Kosove and Johnson started the panel discussing the highly anticipated return of the franchise and finding the right story for its ultimate comeback. Luisa’s was the approach that emerged: a post-war role reversal that leaves the replicants on top and humans fighting back for their place in society. This series furthers the franchise’s question on what it means to truly be human whether robots can develop empathy. The divide between human and replicant is still evident, but may be blurred between the unlikely pairing of Cora (Schafer), a human, and Olen (Michelle Yeoh), a replicant nearing the e end of her life. 

Luisa acknowledged the love and care everyone on set had for this story and doing it justice, “[Blade Runner] is the film that inspired so many of us to actually pursue anything in the arts, and it’s just one of those movies that you never forget the first time you saw it.”

Luisa made the story authentically hers while simultaneously tapping into her inspiration from the original film ,keeping the question of humanity as the focus of the series, “What I remember most was rooting for all the replicants. For Rachael, for Roy Batty, even Leon. I don’t know if that’s what everyone else was feeling, but that’s who I empathized with, and that was such an unsettling and beautiful idea that it might not be humans who teach us what humanity is.”

Yeoh discussed the impressive set design stating, “It felt so organic. I felt like I was in the future, and this is what the future could possibly look like.” Care for the set design and CGI was evident in the teasers shown throughout the panel. The setting felt organically Blade Runner while also utilizing the advancement in technology. The teasers at the panel revealed the official release date of the series to Prime Video on November 25, successfully building excitement in loyal franchise fans. – GS

Carrie

Mike Flanagan’s newest Stephen King adaptation is the writer-director’s favorite, he told attendees in Ballroom 20 of the San Diego Convention Center. Carrie, a limited series produced by Prime Video, reimagines the 50-year-old novel by King for a modern audience.

Members of the “Flanagan Family” (frequent collaborators with the director) including Samantha Sloyan and Matthew Lillard unite with young actors and actresses on this modern retelling of Carrie, which Flanagan and his ensemble say will focus on social media and isolation. It flips many of the original scenes and characters from its source material, complicating its narrative and relationships. Flanagan also said this is one of his most intensive film sets, acting as the culmination of his previous work on shows such as The Haunting of Hill House and The Fall of the House of Usher.

Early looks at various scenes in the upcoming show revealed both classic moments and fresh nuance.

“[Margaret White] loves her daughter. She’s also a fierce woman, so it’s not that she’s a big softy by any means, but I do think that her ferocity is protecting her daughter, the thing she loves most in the world,” Sloyan said, when talking about the difference between Flanagan’s Margaret and King’s Margaret. “Just like her daughter, she has been in this house for 15 years and, you know, she had a life before, but if you just think, if you missed the past 15 years and walked outside, the like, you know, the world would be quite terrifying.” – JM

Lanterns

Lanterns had a glowing presence for HBO Max’s lineup this Comic-Con season, featuring immersive activations where attendees could be fitted with a Green Lantern Power Ring of their own, alongside a “training bootcamp” themed around the show. Fans of the DC character additionally lined up at Hall H in droves just to get a sneak preview at the show during their exclusive panel. 

The panel featured show cast members Kyle Chandler, Aaron Pierre, Garrett Dillahunt, and Poorna Jagannathan answering questions and dissecting their experience working on the show. With executive producers Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King offering key insights about how they transformed the world of Green Lantern into this new series. HBO Max subscribers can expect this show to premiere August 16. – MA

Pan’s Labyrinth

As acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro walked onto the stage of the prestigious Hall H, he was met with thunderous applause. Immediately asking “What the f—?” and then apologizing for cursing, del Toro’s playful attitude communicated a love for cinema unmatched by many of his contemporaries. 

Flanked by Pan’s Labyrinth stars Ivana Baquero and Doug Jones, as well as the movie’s Oscar-winning cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, del Toro and co. shared stories and announcements about the film 20 years into its legacy and the upcoming theatrical rerelease. It was abundantly clear that despite the film being two decades old, the film’s cast and crew are still as close as they were when Pan’s Labyrinth first hit the big screen. It was also clear that the film hadn’t left del Toro’s mind since its release in 2006; he directly oversaw the retouches and 3D screen augmentation for the re-release.

The director also made his love for art apparent, lambasting AI in film and emphasizing the importance of connecting people to human stories. 

“Art saves your life sometimes,” del Toro said. “You know, sometimes, especially when you’re young, you’re vulnerable and you’re down and you’re crushed, and in comes a piece of music, a song, a movie, an illustration, an image, a character that tells you, hang on, hang on, it gets better, you know, and, this movie connects like that with artists.” – JM

Spaceballs: The New One

Almost four decades after the release of Spaceballs, the long-joked about sequel is finally making its way to the big screen. Spaceballs: The New One is set to spoof the newest Star Wars films and television shows, focusing particularly on the sequel trilogy and the latest installments of the Skywalker Saga.

During the joke-laden Hall H panel featuring the new movie’s stars, writers, and director, it became increasingly clear that more thought went into the new Spaceballs movie than people may have expected. Writer and star Josh Gad spoke highly of original director Mel Brooks and said the new film was a tribute to his humor in addition to the comedy of John Candy. Spaceballs: The New One brings back several of the original actors, including Rick Moranis and Daphne Zuniga, who spoke on the panel.

The entire panel often felt like an homage to Brooks, who turned 100 years old in June. Clips of him reuniting with the cast of Spaceballs, meeting the sequels new cast, and doing behind-the-scenes VFX work were sprinkled between conversations with the sequel’s cast. Additionally, attendees got to see the new trailer for Spaceballs: The New One, getting exclusive early access to the Keke Palmer and Lewis Pullman-led film. 

In the final half of the panel, Gad and fellow writers Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit teased the Almighty Schwartz Saga whole (ASSwhole).

“We have enough content until 2148, and we are very excited,” Gad said. – JM

The Vampire Lestat

Like bats clustered together in a dark cave, The Vampire Lestat fans roosted in the dark, patiently awaiting for the signal for the Hall H panel to begin. 

Moderated by Rotten Tomatoes editor Jacqueline Coley, the panel featured executive producers Mark Johnson and Hannah Moscovitch alongside cast members Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Eric Bogosian, and Sheila Atim. Sam Reid was unable to attend due to starring in Doubt: A Parable. Giving fans a sneak peak at what they had missed, the panel opened with a highlight reel from The Vampire Lestat: One Night Only LIVE, the June 2 performance at NYC’s Beacon Theatre, which was revealed to stream exclusively on AMC+ starting August 23, 2026. 

Discussion mostly centered on season 3’s final two episodes. “I didn’t know anything. I was led by [showrunner] Rolin Jones and Hannah Moscovitch down that weird road. Who takes a penultimate episode and decapitates the two leads? It’s unheard of,” Johnson said, admitting he was blindsided by the twist. 

For Moscovitch, the twist was intentional all along. “We wanted episode 6 to reunite Louis and Lestat, and for us to get to see their love again. And then we wanted to cut their heads off,” she said. Moscovitch added that Lestat’s arc required him to “face his own trauma and run through the different rooms and hallways of his mind until he understood that Gabriella had been abusing him and that Louis really loved him.” 

Anderson reflected on shooting intense scenes with Reid. “Weirdly, that’s the most comfortable I feel making this show. Whenever they’re screaming, just know they’re having a blast,” he said, referring to Louis and Lestat. Zaman called playing Armand’s scheming side, “very delicious,” noting he wanted to explore the character’s ability to be “way more conniving and methodical.”

When asked what his favorite line was, Bogosian revealed it was Lestat struggling to pronounce “Worcester.” “That means Massachusetts and it’s ‘Woostah.’ Very simple but he cannot get the words out,” he laughed. This prompted Anderson to add, “Can we also give it up for ‘It’s your boy, Daniel Malloy’?”

Atim discussed tackling Akasha’s four-page, punctuation free monologue, saying she focused on “charting the journey through the questions Akasha is answering.” Atim revealed that she initially paced around her hotel room while learning the speech, only to find out she would be delivering it while strapped to a stone table. To come to the role as prepared as possible, she “decided to learn [the speech] sitting on my bed with one leg up and one leg down, in the exact position I would be.” 

The panel closed with the reveal of season 4, Queen of the Damned, and an exclusive trailer that sent Hall H into a frenzy. – IA

Den of Geek Events

Cracked Comedy Club

On Saturday, July 25, San Diego’s Gas Lamp Quarter got a reminder that comedy is its own kind of superpower. Cracked Comedy Club teamed up with National Lampoon’s Yellow Door for a live showcasing event. 

Kicking off at 9:30 p.m., host Ryan Archuleta welcomed a lineup stacked with talent clearly on the way up: Charlie James, Mary Houlihan, Vince Caldera, Noah Findling, Fatimah Taliah, Austin Kress, Ben Brainard, Max Castillo, and Willie Macc. Each comic brought their own flavor to the stage, and the crowd, packed chair to chair, ate up every minute of it. The laughs came fast and often, and if the crowd’s reaction was any indication, don’t be surprised if a few of these names start popping up on much bigger venues very soon. 

Between the packed house, the late hour, and a sharp lineup, the Yellow Door proved for one night that Comic-Con isn’t just for capes and cosplay, it’s for punchlines too! – IA

Dark Matter Season 2 Premiere Screening

Huddled together in the cavernous Ballroom 6DE of the San Diego Convention Center, fans of the Apple TV sci-fi television series Dark Matter joined together for an exclusive screening of season 2’s first episode. 

A brief Q&A with Dark Matter’s cast and crew preceded the screening, giving a few minutes for the show’s talent to talk about their ever-expanding world. Den of Geek hosted the screening, bringing only the most tireless Dark Matter fans to the after-hours event.

“It’s a very special thing to get to watch a TV show that you create with strangers,” author and co-showrunner Blake Crouch said. “You know, if you make a movie, you could always slip into a theater and see what people are feeling. In television, unless you have a premiere, which is generally friends and family and crew, you don’t get that. So to get that kind of a reaction was so gratifying.”

“Extremely humbling too, for somebody to sacrifice their Friday night at 10:00 p.m. to come out and watch our show and be a part of that. It’s everyone’s dream,” co-showrunner Jacque Ben-Zekry added.

Dark Matter follows physics professor Jason Dessen after he’s swindled into an alternate version of his life. The show is an odyssey across dimensions as Dessen tirelessly tries to return to his home reality and family.

The second season picks up shortly after where the first season left off. Without spoiling anything, viewers will get a much more paranoid, and at times desperate, ensemble of characters. – JM

eBay Live Charity Auction

This year, Den of Geek hosted a live charity auction on eBay Live, hosted by Sam Stone and Nick Morgulis. The money raised goes to the Book Industry Charitable (BINC) Foundation, whose mission is “to strengthen the bookselling and comic retailing communities through charitable programs that support employees, owners, and their families.” BINC is dedicated to helping book and comic professionals in need to keep the industry alive, and to create a caring community for people to rely on. 

The auction included the extraordinary work of legendary comic creator Frank Miller. Fans had the opportunity to bid on an incredible collection of books and graphics from Miller’s career, all of which were signed by Miller himself. This collection included several signed copies of his new memoir, Push the Wall, with 1-of-1 Batman sketches that Miller personally sketched for Den of Geek during SDCC. 

Miller’s autobiography includes numerous sketches of his works, as he tells his story from teenagedom to reviving the Batman comics to his retelling of the Spartans’ last stand in 300 — this goes over the complete works of his career and is a masterclass for anyone looking to join the comic industry as a storyteller. 

Push the Wall: My Life, Writing, Drawing, and the Art of Storytelling is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Audible. – NG

Live from the Con @ Mission Brewing

Den of Geek hosted a giveaway event this year at San Diego Comic-Con, “Live From the Con with Roddenberry Entertainment,” sponsored by Fourth Wing: Rise of the Wingleader. Hosted by Sam Stone alongside Elly Glitch and Nick Marino, the event celebrated the release of Goliath Games’ board game adaptation of Rebecca Yarros’ bestselling series. 

The evening featured live taping of Roddenberry Entertainment and Nacelle Company’s Does It Fly? And POWER-UP by Den of Geek, putting dragon flight and game strategy under some good-natured scientific scrutiny. Oh, and of course there was some Xaden thirsting along the way that only free beer courtesy of Mission Brewing could quench.  

Discussing the source material, Marino praised how the books elevate the familiar fantasy structure. “I love how this took the structure we’ve seen before but upped all the fantasy, the risks, everything going into it, it’s heightened,” he said. Glitch added that the story kept readers guessing, “It also subverted a bunch of expectations.” 

Of the game itself, Marino expressed his excitement for the story being redefined into a more hands on experience for fans. “This is a story that is in a conversation with its audience, and to take that and make it interactive on a different level as a game, that’s a dope idea,” he said. 

Attendees had the chance to win complete copies of the book series as well as get glimpses of the game, which is now available at all major retailers. – IA

Wattpad @ Mission Brewing

The Den of Geek and Wattpad-hosted event at Mission Brewing invited independent writers to come connect and celebrate each other’s work. The event had free Wattpad writing pads with writing prompts to spark inspiration and authors Punko, Derek V. Song, ROSEOAK, and E.M. Wilson, who had a signing table for her book Breakup For Two.

Wilson says she started her writing career reaching out to agents. After one got back to her and said, “not everybody has a strength in writing, you don’t really have an author voice that’s discernible, so maybe take a step back and see if this is something you really want to pursue,” the author thought that she had to “pack it up.” But she persisted and started writing on Wattpad, eventually getting herself a publishing deal under the Wattpad/WEBTOON umbrella. 

The party was a space for authors to discuss how their love for writing began and how platforms like Wattpad aided their careers. Derek V. Song, author of Fantasy High, talked about his first memory of him writing at the age of six in the backroom of a bar his father worked at, “They had this big boxy computer that was too old to do anything but open up a Word program. So a lot of hours were spent typing because it was one of the only things I could do.”

Punko, author of Cinderella Boy, talked about how platforms like WEBTOON and Wattpad give a space for authors like her to receive constructive criticism and grow as an artist, “Your goal as a writer and creator is to create the best possible stories you can. You will not do that if all you do is seek out praise, because you don’t grow from praise, you grow from criticism.”

The Den of Geek Wattpad party was a successful gathering of independent artists that further promoted their stories and sparked inspiration in others at San Diego Comic-Con to get started on their own creations. – GS