Franchise fatigue gives original stories a boost at Comic-Con

Comic-Con kicked off in San Diego on Thursday, and in a sign Hollywood may be moving beyond Peak IP, some of this year’s buzziest panels aren’t for superheroes or cute droids, but for visionary creators. Apple TV’s “Widow’s Bay,” the Katie Dippold horror-comedy that just collected 19 Emmy nominations and proved that 2026 audiences like their TV a little weird, will mark the streamer’s debut in the San Diego Convention Center’s cavernous, high-stakes venue, Hall H, on a prime Saturday afternoon slot. Other projects getting a big room treatment include: Netflix’s animated neo-noir sci-fi film, “Ray Gunn” from Brad Bird; Neon’s sci-fi action thriller “Hope” from South Korean director Na Hong-jin; and A24’s thriller “Onslaught,” from Adam Wingard. Those of us old enough to have been sitting in Hall H nearly 20 years ago when Jon Favreau unveiled footage from the first “Iron Man” movie remember the feeling of a culture quake beginning as the era of comic book movie dominance took hold in Hollywood and studios raced to shore up their supplies of superhero-driven intellectual property. IP still matters, of course, with franchises remaining some of the biggest audience draws. This year’s blockbuster hits include video game adaptation “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and the fifth installment of the 30-year-old animated “Toy Story” franchise. Marvel also has two heavy hitters on deck: “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” opening next week, and “Avengers: Doomsday,” due in December. But recognizable properties are not the reliable earners they once were, as evidenced by the underwhelming performance of recent movies such as “Star Wars: the Mandalorian and Grogu,” “Supergirl” and “Masters of the Universe.” And films driven by the visions of their directors, such as Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Curry Barker’s “Obsession” have ignited audiences. All of that means change at Comic-Con, which since its launch in the 1970s has been both a driver and an indicator of pop culture winds. Marc Bernardin, who has attended Comic-Con for years as a fan, journalist and writer-producer on shows such as “Star Trek Picard” and Marvel’s “Eyes of Wakanda,” sees a disturbance in the force. “There is no new ‘Star Trek’ in development, no new ‘Dr Who’ in development. ‘Star Wars’ doesn’t have its footing,” Bernardin said. “These venerable franchises that used to be the solid double hit you would get out of Comic-Con aren’t there anymore, so it does leave the door open for new, unexpected things.” Comic-Con also has more competition than it once did, as studios have launched their own fan cons, such as Disney’s D23 and Netflix’s Tudum, or other similar events have popped up around the world, like the increasingly buzzy CCXP in Sao Paulo. But according to one studio source who is bringing a project to Comic-Con this year, the real transformation is among the fans. “The fandom is shifting from franchises to creators,” said the source, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the record. “Who fans are, what they come for, it’s all changing and studio engagement is going to need to change too.” Welcome back to ON THE LOT. Also in this edition, a big screen smackdown and the AI blockbuster alternatives. Got tips (on where to park when the Arclight comes back to Hollywood or where to go for dinner after seeing A24’s new Anthony Bourdain movie). You can reach me at rebecca.keegan@nbcuni.com or on Signal at thatrebecca.82. GO BIG OR GO HOME Selecting a movie ticket has gotten a lot more complicated in the last few years. According to Charlotte Jones, senior principal analyst of media and entertainment at Omdia, there are now 79 different movie theater brands to choose from in North America, and more than 285 brands worldwide. Can’t get into IMAX but wanna see a movie in 4DX, ScreenX or RPX instead? The Xs alone are dizzying. As “The Odyssey” heads into its second weekend at the box office, fueled in buzz and dollars by its IMAX ticket sales, I did a deep dive this week on the premium large format phenomenon. Disney is introducing a new label it is calling Infinity Vision, essentially the studio’s version of a Good Housekeeping seal of approval on a movie theater with a big screen, laser projection and high-quality sound. There’s been a fair amount of skepticism of Disney’s motivation for creating this new certification, which coincides with the studio getting shut out of IMAX screens for its December release of “Avengers: Doomsday.” Those screens will be taken by Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part III,” which had a contract for them before Disney moved its Marvel sequel onto the same date. In an interview with IMAX’s Rich Gelfond about Disney’s new label, he said, “They came up with Infinity Vision as marketing so they could bundle a lot of disparate companies with X’s after their names and communicate a way to compete with IMAX. It’s just kind of a way they can capture more dollars, but I don’t think they’re really replicating our experience.” But Disney’s head of distribution, Andrew Cripps, described Infinity Vision to me as a way of simplifying life for moviegoers. “It’s good for consumers if we can offer them the choice of better screens, better experiences,” he said. This week, just as Disney began selling advance tickets for “Avengers: Doomsday” in the format I headed into one of the theaters that has earned the Infinity Vision designation. We’ll have to wait until September, when the studio rolls out Infinity Vision with a re-release of “Avengers: Endgame,” to see if the label becomes a meaningful tool to moviegoers. For my part, I can confirm that the Infinity Vision theater’s reclining seats were pretty comfy. AN ‘ODYSSEY’ FOR EVERYONE If you don’t like Hollywood’s version of a story, try AI’s. NBC News culture and trends reporter Angela Yang explored the emergence of the AI blockbuster alternative, an idea getting a boost from right-wing critics of Nolan’s version of “The Odyssey,” including Elon Musk. This week Musk said Grok Imagine, his AI video generator, “will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.” What “historically accurate” means in a story that includes a one-eyed monster and a sorceress who turns people into pigs is really anyone’s guess. But Musk’s friends on Grok aren’t the only AI auteurs mining Homer’s work. Ash Koosha, director of “Odysseus: The Fall,” a 135-minute feature film due from AI movie studio Fountain AO later this year, told Yang that his AI Odyssey movie is not intended as a response to Nolan’s. Instead, Koosha said, it’s a creative exercise of its own that has been swept up in the culture war, just like Nolan’s film. “That world is coming, where we all have the ability to tell our version, so it’s no longer exclusive to a few people who have hundreds of millions of dollars to tell the story,” Koosha said. “There will be parallels in different sizes and budgets. And I think that is very fulfilling for the same people that like to go online and start shouting at each other.” THE DIALOGUE “There is no moviegoing destination anywhere in the world that commands the affection, history, and cultural significance of the Cinerama Dome.” — Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja in a statement announcing that the studio’s theater chain and the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema have teamed up to reopen the historic Hollywood landmark.. “If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through the red behind me. They would drive up onto people’s lawns, even on a hillside. We were trying to have our little one play soccer, and the association asked us to stop because there were 20 cars coming. So it wasn’t just about us. It was just an industry that had gotten out of control.” — Actor Jennifer Garner in an interview on the “Shut Up Evan” podcast, describing the lengths paparazzi would go to snap photos of her and her children “Children deserve laws that protect them. They shouldn’t have to become adults before realizing the law should have protected them all along.” —Media personality and reality TV star Courtney Stodden in an Instagram post calling out actor Jason Alexander over a lewd 2012 comedy sketch the two made when Stodden was 17. Alexander apologized. That’s a wrap. See you next week.