Editorial: It Feels Like Studio Franchises Are About to Evolve into Their Own Yearly SDCC-Size Events

Is there a chance, in 5-7 years from now, San Diego Comic-Con International will be less about big movie franchise and more about television and... strap-in for this one... comic books and less about movies?

Could SDCC eventually lose big studio franchise presentations from the likes of the Star Wars franchise to Disney's Star Wars Celebration? Or DC Films to a hypothetical DC Con? And would Disney consider a Star Wars Celebration-like event for Marvel Studios that we shall simply call Marvel Celebration?

These have to be questions studios executives at Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros. and DC Films as well as at other studios must be thinking behind closed doors right now. Although, Lucasfilm probably isn't since they have Star Wars Celebration but conversations about their event becoming bigger with both an annual domestic show as well as an annual International location should have already been discussed. (In theory.)

I have been going to SDCC every year since 2011 — which helped inspire me to consider building the website you're currently at — and I can tell you that it is chaos. But chaos in the grandest way.

There is no possible way to see and do everything at SDCC and you really need to schedule and micromanage yourself wisely. Especially if you're planning on waiting in lines for the biggest Hall H panels or if you must-have that Hasbro, Mattel or Funko exclusive figure you can only get by waiting in lengthy SDCC line queues.

San Diego Comic-Con is a well-oiled machine, for sure, and it took me at least two straight years of going to it to figure out all its quirks, secrets and insight of managing my time to maximize my experience. And please note that there is probably no such thing as having all the knowledge needed of knowing everything about SDCC. It's too big to be all-knowing about it.

It is no easy task for any first- or second-timer. It's like on-the-job training for a 5-day-long marathon and it's really quite something once you get to your third time attending because things actually begin to slow down and then you realize you're finally developing a comfort zone. Yet, it will get thrown a bit off every year and you have to adapt because SDCC is constantly evolving and changing while parts do stay the same (ish).

SDCC continues to astound me each year with studios and networks not only trying to out-do each other but trying to one-up themselves from previous years. It's honest-to-goodness the epicenter of all-things of pop culture every summer.

But herein lies a thought — which came to me after it was reported that 20th Century Fox won't have their big Hall H SDCC presentation this summer. For all it's awesome insanity it just feels like Marvel Studios, Disney, Pixar, DC Films, Lucasfilm and maybe studios could be thinking about starting their own weekend versions of a big fan expo or Con for their biggest franchises. There's a sense right now that it's an eventual reaction effect of Marvel Studios' multi-franchise movie universe concept where everything is more connected and studios continue to copy the format themselves.

In fact, while attending Disney's D23 Expo last summer it felt like Disney was testing the waters on if they think they can branch out their D23 Expo into their own version of SDCC. Right now, the D23 Expo is every other year and last summer both Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios skipped big SDCC Hall H presentations for their own in-house presentations the following month at D23. And it felt like the whole thing worked, too, because it was Disney's own controlled environment at their own event.

I, personally, want a yearly D23 Expo as well as SDCC. They compliment each other more than compete because it opens SDCC to go back to it's roots and be more about comic books, while television shows can take the place of all the biggest movie studios. And if Disney considers it even further by creating something similar to what Star Wars has by hypothetically introducing something along the lines of Marvel Celebration, you can bet Warner Bros. and DC Films will be watching closely. As well as perhaps 20th Century Fox, Paramount and other Hollywood studios who have enough movie franchise tentpoles to do their own fan expo or Con.

This is nothing against San Diego Comic-Con, because I love it and will continue to attend but the big convention scene has the feeling that it's evolving and expanding into something more.

The convention bubble... it feels like it's almost ready to burst it a very big way so start saving now just in case.