Lucas, Alien, and More: What’s Hot at San Diego Comic-Con

San Diego, California — Comic-Con 2024 officially opened on Monday in San Diego with tens of thousands of pop culture fans descending on the California city from around the world — and with one historic first on the attendance list in particular leaving longtime attendees feeling extra starstruck.

Sci-fi and pop culture icon George Lucas will make his first Comic-Con appearance in the festival’s 55-year history, officials announced this week.

The creator of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” has remained famously absent from the annual festival over the decades, even as his blockbuster brands have become a central and enduring part of Comic-Con.

“This will be a true full-circle moment for George, who has had an undeniable impact on so many areas of storytelling, world-building, and visual innovation over the past five decades,” said David Glanzer, Comic-Con Chief Communications and Strategy Officer, in a statement.

Glanzer also noted that “nearly 50 years ago, Star Wars made one of its very first public appearances at our convention, which coincided with a booth that featured [comic book artist] Howard Chaykin’s now legendary Star Wars poster as a promotional item.”

Lucas will be appearing at the festival on Sunday on a panel with a focus on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a new art museum due to open in Los Angeles next year. The program will be moderated by Queen Latifah and will feature Lucas alongside Mexican director Guillermo del Toro and Oscar-winning concept artist Doug Chiang, whose work has spanned several decades of Star Wars-related material.

The panel will highlight the new Lucas Museum, which has been in the works for years, and will focus on celebrating illustrated storytelling and the history and experience of storytelling through film, comics, and concept art. Lucas has also indicated that his private collection will be on display at the museum when it opens.

Comic-Con’s growth through the years

Comic-Con was first held in 1970, when a group of just a few dozen people interested in comic books gathered in San Diego for the start of the annual con.

Over time, the festival’s mission and scope evolved. It became a rallying place for fans of pop culture media like graphic novels, movies, animation, and more.

As Comic-Con expanded its reach, attendance also skyrocketed. The organization now hosts an event that attracts approximately 130,000 visitors from around the world. Fans travel to the event to dress up as their favorite characters and collect limited-edition collectibles. They also watch exclusive sneak peeks, panel discussions, and world premieres of films and television projects from Hollywood studios.

Highlights to expect this year

While the “Star Wars” creator’s presence has been especially buzzworthy in the lead-up to the show, comic book fans are also particularly excited about this year’s lineup, especially as several key figures from Marvel Studios have decided to hold back from the festival, scaling back the brand’s traditional programming at the show.

Marvel Studios is not holding its usual Hall H presentation this year because the latest Avengers film has shifted direction in terms of its content and storyline, Variety reported.

Studio leadership reportedly found itself having to navigate a last-minute production change while filming was still taking place in the United Kingdom, leading to the studio pulling out of the panel altogether. The new trailer shown at SDCC last week still touts the film as “James Gunn’s The Avengers.”

Sci-fi stories take center stage.

Still, fans can expect an abundance of material from filmmakers and creatives with similar sensibilities as the top-rated Marvel productions, with sci-fi projects set to take center stage at this year’s event.

“The Alien: Earth” premiere is one of the highly anticipated events of this year’s Comic-Con. Fans can expect to see the world premiere of the series on Thursday morning in Hall H, the festival’s largest and most coveted venue, ahead of its premiere on streaming platforms in August.

“The Alien: Earth” prequel series, directed by Noah Hawley, revisits the storied fictional universe created by director Ridley Scott in the original 1979 film. The project is set only a few years before the events of Scott’s space saga.

Details about the new series are still being kept under wraps, but the title refers to the planet Earth during the time of the film, which is overrun with the deadly extraterrestrial xenomorph species.

Attendees can also expect to hear more about “Predator: Badlands,” the upcoming spinoff film featuring the most famous sci-fi alien hunter around, although now with an interesting new spin: for the first time in the franchise’s history, it is the Predator that is at the mercy of others.

Dan Trachtenberg, whose 2022 “Prey” rebooted the film series, will moderate a panel with lead actress Elle Fanning and actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who plays the titular alien, called Dek. The new film will center on the character and will be in theaters next year.

Meanwhile, Ryan Gosling will be at Comic-Con for a panel on “Project Hail Mary,” the movie based on the book by Andy Weir, author of The Martian. The new project will be released in theaters in 2025.

In the film, Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a former high school science teacher who mysteriously wakes up on a spaceship, only to realize that he is all that stands between the fate of Earth and its human inhabitants and utter extinction.

Gosling will be on the panel with directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who are best known for the Spider-Verse franchise.

Superhero fans will be able to learn more about the upcoming second season of “Peacemaker” when the cast and creator James Gunn appear at a Comic-Con panel. Gunn will be sharing footage from behind the scenes and of the upcoming second season of the series. Gunn has since gone on to head DC’s new film slate, with Superman among the new titles.

Fans will be able to see cast members this weekend sporting elaborate costumes based on their favorite comic book and sci-fi characters. The show will run through Sunday, July 27.