James Gunn, the writer and director of the hit movie Guardians Of The Galaxy, has just stated on his Facebook page that Marvel Studios will not attend SDCC this July. Now thats quite a bummer for a lot of those looking forward to the event this year. In previous years they have used the event to announce all types of movie related moves that have brought the house down among fans. Now it looks as if they will skip this years event all together.
This disappoints me because you could try to argue that Marvel Studios is getting to big for it's britches and doesn't feel like an event like SDCC is big enough for their properties. You can argue that competition for attention is at a premium(DC/Warner Bros. will surely take advantage!). You can argue that with the support fanboys & fangirls have given them over the years this would be a slap in the face for those who love their properties and look forward this year to making the difficult trek to even attend the event to be a part of their spectacle. I understand business is business and Disney may feel that Marvel would be better suited for their own D23 event they hold every August. Maybe to them Marvel provides a notable boost to that event that they don't want to share with others. Of course this is all speculation at this point about Disney's plans but I can truly say that before Disney bought Marvel and the Star Wars properties a lot of fanboys didn't care about anything Disney related news or material. D23? Who new what that was until they decided to debut a Marvel property there a couple years back.
Disney is a powerhouse when it comes to their marketing machine and they have handled Marvel properties extremely well when it comes to audience awareness. To the annoyance of some when you slap the "Marvel's" name before every TV and movie they produce no matter how clunky the title you can now say that your grandma knows who Marvel is. So what she keeps asking why Batman can't appear in the Avengers? Doesn't that show that DC/Warner Bros has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to cementing the DC brand? Anyway my whole point is that I hope Marvel isn't forgetting it's core fans that supported their properties through thick and thin by not attending this event. Marvel Studios, in 7 short years, has become the top movie studio in Hollywood with their adaptations of their characters. Technology has finally caught up with the way their characters can look on the big screen without looking cheesy. Hopefully Marvel is not totally abandoning the ultimate fan event that is SDCC. They still have several TV properties that are coming out that they can still make look larger than life at the event. Just because Marvel is now under the Disney umbrella doesn't separate the fact that it's origins are still rooted in the comic book fanboy culture. SDCC is pretty much the mothership of all these so called geek cons resurging in popularity across the country so I hope Marvel remembers that it started with us. We cosplay their characters, buy the merchandise and books, support the TV shows when they start off clunky(Agents of Shield), and always make their movies number one the first weekend when they debut.
Don't separate yourself from your core fans, Marvel. That core is a lot larger than you may realize.
-Krayzeman, The Fanboy Ambassador
Follow me on Twitter @krayzeman