Hype for Comic-Con@Home was down 95% compared to what it was last year at the live convention, according to reputable people who know these things.
This past weekend, the organizers behind the San Diego Comic-Con tried their hand at mounting a digital version of the convention, since the real thing couldn’t go off on account of that pesky coronavirus still making large gatherings impossible. And it…happened. We got some news — we learned when Vikings was coming back, when we can watch The Walking Dead finale — but overall it didn’t seem to have the zip and verve of past cons.
And that’s inevitable, right? I mean, San Diego Comic-Con is all about the energy of being in a crowd of people dressed as superheroes and dragons and aliens and whatnot and being in the room where Disney or Marvel or whoever pulls the curtain back on some big new property, and then getting to ask about it afterward. Pretty much none of that could have happened this year.
For one, big names like Disney and Marvel and DC didn’t show up at all, or were barely there. Also, the pre-recorded panel discussions didn’t involve any audience questions, so there was no chance to ask the actors and directors and writers who did show up any questions, which is usually part of the fun.
And then there were the weird decisions. For example, Comic-Con@Home had a couple different Star Trek…but CBS waits until Monday to unveil the release date for Star Trek: Discovery season 3 via press release? You didn’t wanna maybe announce that when eyes were on you? Create some hype?
Social media analytics firm ListenFirst confirmed to Variety that there just wasn’t much hype to go around this year. Tweets that mentioned Comic-Con this year were down 95% compared to the convention in 2019. Tweets about the top 10 TV events were down 93%, while tweets about the top five movie panels were down 99%. That’s nearly a 100% dropoff, people.
The best-performing panel, accounting for both views and social media chatter, was probably the one for The New Mutants, Fox’s much-delayed X-Men spinoff. The panel about Vikings got a good number of views but relatively little social action, while The Walking Dead panel inspired a fair amount of discussion.
And the most noteworthy panels didn’t happen at Comic-Con at all: it was Zack Snyder debuting footage from the Snyder Cut of Justice League at the pirate JusticeCon that was happening on the same weekend! Notably, that one allowed fans to actually ask questions of Snyder. A note for if we’re still in lockdown mode when Comic-Con 2021 rolls around.
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