DC Skips Hall H; Premieres ‘Lanterns’ and ‘Clayface’ Trailers Online Instead

Comic-Con is here again! Nerds from all over the world are making their annual late-July pilgrimage to San Diego to bask in fan activations and Hall H announcements from all the major studios. All except DC, that is. For the third year in a row since its inception, DC Studios is eschewing the typical SDCC showcase in favor of using social media to get the word out.

This doesn’t mean the studio is skipping the Con altogether. There will be a dedicated Lanterns panel in Hall H featuring the show’s creators and stars Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler; plus, a special Lanterns activation is onsite for fans to feel the power of Green Lantern’s light for themselves. Though, these events are tied more to HBO’s con presence than DC’s.

Also, the director and star of the upcoming Clayface — James Watkins and Tom Rhys Harries, respectively — crashed Jim Lee’s panel on Day One of the convention to talk about their new trailer that dropped earlier in the week.

Aside from these two appearances, though, DC Studios’ footprint on Comic-Con 2026 is pretty bare. But this shouldn’t be a surprise since James Gunn himself has said he doesn’t think the Hall H juice is ultimately worth the squeeze. As he told the YouTube channel ScreenCrush in an interview last October:

I think it’s a case-by-case basis… it just depends on the situation. Sometimes you really benefit from going to Comic-Con and spending millions of dollars and selling an idea, especially when you have a great trailer or something like that. But other times, I post a picture of the cover of a screenplay on Instagram for zero dollars and it’s equally effective. It gets just as much press.

Considering the precarious position DC Studios finds itself in — given the disappointing box office of Supergirl, the uncertainty of what a Warner Bros. merger with Paramount might portend, and the pressure being put on next year’s Man of Tomorrow — a lot is riding on these next installments of the DCU. But that’s also the danger of holding an event that announces an ambitious slate of projects that may or may not pan out.

This is the predicament even a seasoned studio like Marvel has found themselves in during past Comic-Cons — though Kevin Feige and friends are scheduled for another high-energy Hall H spectacle on Saturday to apparently promote the next 16 years of the MCU. As much hype that surrounds a Marvel Studios Hall H announcement, those aren’t guaranteed either. Just ask Mahershala Ali and his Blade movie that will never happen.

The most memorable DC Hall H appearances ended up belly flopping too. Remember when Zack Snyder brought all the directors of the DCEU on stage 10 years ago to map out the next decade of movies? Or that time The Rock showed up in 2022 as Black Adam to announce the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe was about to change? Maybe it’s a good thing DC skips SDCC so they don’t have to keep making promises they can’t keep.

Honestly, the only time DC was truly successful at the announce-our-projects-for-the-fans event was during Covid when they went virtual with DC Fandome. For two years, DC owned the internet with these completely online conventions that were open to everyone. The best part? FanDome gave equal weight to comics and animation announcements as they did for big movies like The Batman or TV shows like The Flash. Plus, fans didn’t have to wait in line for hours baking in the southern California sun to get a glimpse of exclusive footage.

Maybe Gunn is right. Posting on the internet can drive just as much media attention as a splashy Hall H panel.

Anyway, here’s the Lanterns trailer that debuted at Comic-Con today: