Fans return home happy following weekend of major announcements at Comic-Con

Pop Culture fans have returned home happy following a weekend of exciting film and television announcements at San Diego Comic Con 2022.

The world famous convention returned in-person for the first time in three years, having been moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A flurry of upcoming features were announced from industry giants including Amazon, Warner Bros, HBO and Marvel, who debuted exclusive sneak peaks and other content.

Thousands of fans flocked to the San Diego Convention Centre for the four day event, with Covid protocols including vaccine-checks and mask-wearing still enforced.

Most of the major announcements were made on the second and third days in the famous Hall H venue.

Things got underway on Thursday afternoon with the official release of the trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

The two-minute trailer shows Chris Pine leading a team of A-list fantasy thieves against a backdrop of CGI action scenes, set against Led Zeppelin’s track Whole Lotta Love.

Friday’s announcements were led by Amazon, with the release of a new trailer for upcoming series The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power.

The panel, hosted by US talk show host Stephen Colbert, interviews with most members of the large ensemble cast, as well as an enormous panoramic screen to show the new trailer and several other, exclusive clips from the show.

Fans will be thrown deep into JRR Tokien’s Second Age in the series, which takes place thousands of years before the events of the world-renowned The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings books.

Other panels on the convention’s first day included one for The Walking Dead franchise which released trailers for the show’s final episodes and introduced upcoming anthological spin-off series Tales Of The Walking Dead.

Dwayne Johnson kicked off Saturday with an electrifying promotional panel for his upcoming DC blockbuster Black Adam.

The actor appeared onstage surrounded by crackling electricity and swirling smoke and dressed in his anti-hero attire, as he warned fans that the superhero universe would “never be the same again”.

In the following panel, Johnson said that making the film had been “a dream come true”.

“The journey has been an incredible one,” he said.

“To be here to watch Black Adam levitate and throw lightning like he was handing out candy, it’s a dream come true.”

The Black Adam showcase was preceded by a panel for Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, which stars Zachary Levi, Rachel Zegler and Dame Helen Mirren.

Dame Helen joked that she had been banned from Comic-Con for fighting at previous conventions as she appeared in a virtual message to fans apologising for her absence.

Later, HBO’s House Of The Dragon panel featured a raft of British talent as well an appearance from Game Of Throne’s creator George RR Martin, who reassured fans yet again that he was still writing The Winds Of Winter.

But one of the weekends biggest talking points was the Marvel “mega-panel” on Saturday afternoon, hosted by boss Kevin Feige.

After announcing that the franchise’s Phase Four would soon end with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Feige went on to set out the road map for both Phases Five and Six, confirming dozens of new titles and Disney series.

Among the announcements were trailers for Guardians Of The Galaxy 3, Ant-Man: Quantumania and Black Panther, ahead of which the cast and crew paid tribute to its late star Chadwick Boseman.

Director Ryan Coogler said the production team behind the film had “put our love for Chadwick into this film” before introducing the emotional clip.

Feige also announced that Phase Six of Marvel would begin in 2024 with a Fantastic Four film and end in 2025 with two new Avengers movies.

The first, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is scheduled for May 2 2025 and Avengers: Secret Wars will be released just six months later on November 7 2025.

Other Hollywood stars pictured at the convention included Hugh Grant, Keanu Reeves, Terry Crews, and Sir Patrick Stewart.