Comic-Con 2014: all the news from geek culture's biggest event

If you weren't at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con and you love Game of Thrones, you're in luck: you can now watch the full, hour-long panel on YouTube. If you're not all caught up on the show, probably best you don't (h/t Morning After/Gawker).

"So, what’d you think?" said the man who had gotten me into the cockpit of a Pacific Rim Jaeger.

I grinned. "Great! But I was a little disappointed that I didn’t fall or get eaten."

You can't get into Hall H every day. For the final installment of our animated series, I set off for Comic-Con's biggest venue in search of new adventures. But the line for the day's biggest and best panels was more than a mile long, and I abandoned all hope early on. Fortunately Thunder Levin, the screenwriter of Sharknado and this week's Sharknado 2, was around to talk to me about upping the ante, crazy filming conditions, and what happened when he introduced himself to Richard Dreyfuss.

San Diego Comic-Con is an impossible place, because everything that’s terrible about it is basically mitigated by everything wonderful about it. The annual gathering brings together tens of thousands of geeks to celebrate their fandom as movie studios market upcoming blockbusters with exclusive trailers and clips. On one hand you spend incalculable amounts of time in line; on the other, you meet George R.R. Martin. There is nothing easy or relaxing about the biggest event in all of fandom; everything feels more or less like a fight. But then you win a few fights, like securing a seat inside Hall H for the day, and by the end you feel like you could do it again next year. Maybe.

For my first Comic-Con, I decide to jump in with both feet. At 3:30AM on Thursday morning, I wake up and get in line for Comic-Con’s biggest venue, Hall H. The lineup for the day is a mix of things that no one could possibly care about (clips from Penguins of Madagascar) and things that will probably be cool (a mystery presentation by Paramount Pictures). Surely something interesting will happen inside. But first I have to get in.

Tens of thousands of people descend on San Diego for Comic-Con each year, making it the perfect place for cosplayers to show off some of their best outfits. It’s hard not to be almost-constantly wowed by the costume work while walking around the convention floor, but some outfits stood well above the rest in terms of accuracy, attention to detail, or just sheer awesomeness.

Want to know our favorite cosplayers of this year’s con? We asked a number of them to pose for us, and you can take a look at their outfits below.

Even after this week's Comic-Con panel, we still don't know much about Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Interstellar. Will there be wormholes? Check. An internal emotional struggle for our main protagonist, a pilot played by Matthew McConaughey? Check, check, check. You can now watch the 15-minute panel yourself, with Nolan and his lead star reportedly making their first-ever appearance at Comic-Con. Two words of caution, however: one, the new footage that bookended the panel isn't included in the video. Two, we're still experiencing The Full McConaughey™ — it takes all but a minute for him to make his "alright alright alright" quip. Interstellar is scheduled to be released on November 7th.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For comes out in a little under a month, and by now we're well aware of how stylish and downright bloody it's meant to be. But things can always get bloodier. In this latest spot that first debuted at Comic-Con this weekend, directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller both make short appearances as men dying slowly in an alley. "This rotten town," Miller croaks. "It slows everybody it touches." After that, it's pure carnage as we see plenty of returning faces, new stars... and even Lady Gaga as a waitress. We'll see more when it hits theaters on August 22nd.

On October 7th, author James Frey will release a novel about the apocalypse. It will hold an elaborate code, directing readers towards a key hidden somewhere in the real world. That key will open a case containing $500,000 in gold.

This is the premise of Endgame: The Calling, which is not so much a book as a sweeping attempt at a story that will colonize all conceivable media. Fox is developing a movie concurrently, and Google's Niantic Labs, responsible for alternate-reality game Ingress, is making a new game based on the plot. A D&D dungeon master has been conscripted to maintain social media accounts for the characters, which he has done for the past year. Two more books are coming. And around it all is a scavenger hunt based on cryptic numbers, coordinates, and other details hidden in the book.

Ever the controversial figure, Frank Miller is nevertheless one of the greats. As one of many notable comics creators who shot to prominence in the 1980s and ‘90s, Miller’s work on such characters as Batman and Daredevil helped define a generation of comic readers. But he’s seen his share of deserved criticism over the course of his career — graphic novels like Sin City and 300, while stylish and influential, have been derided for their treatment of women and people of color, and the more recent Holy Terror was shellacked by readers and comic writers alike for its unabashedly propagandistic attack on Islam.

Miller presses on, critics be damned. He’s a bit of a crank, after all, and will proudly call himself "a prick" in front of an audience of die-hard fans at Comic-Con. Reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, who helped bring Sin City’s stripped-down style to film back in 2005, he’s now preparing for the release of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Coming out on August 22nd, the new movie is a return to his beloved world of fast cars, brutal killers, and dangerous women, but promises to push the envelope even further. We sat down with Miller to talk about the new film, his influence, and when Sin City 3 will come out.

Just about all of the biggest movies and TV shows for the year or so ahead descended on San Diego over the weekend for the 2014 Comic-Con, unleashing a whirlwind of news, trailers, and teases for what’s to come. So much happens that it’s easy — if not next to impossible — not to miss some, so below we’ve rounded up everything you need to know, watch, and read to take in this year’s convention.

The Hunger Games has been promoting itself with eerie propaganda videos and posters for a couple months now, but today the first proper teaser for Mockingjay Part I has arrived. The teaser doesn't go right into all-out advertising mode either: it still maintains the dark tones of everything else that we've seen promoting the film until now. It's both hopeful and mournful, and it shows that these film adaptations continue to have a strong grasp on what makes their dystopian world come alive. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is scheduled to open in theaters on November 21st.

It has only been two weeks since Marvel announced that that a woman would take up Thor’s hammer in the comics, but attendees of Comic-Con 2014 have eagerly embraced the news. This year, Marvel is the top choice for cosplayers looking for inspiration, and mixed in with all the Deadpools, Captain Americas, and Winter Soldiers, we found a number of women wielding Mjolnir and excited about the direction Marvel is taking its comics.

The Simpsons and Family Guy haven't historically been on the best terms. In 2005, a joke on The Simpsons took a dig at the shows' similarities, which Seth MacFarlane said was "definitely a slam." But it appears they've buried the hatchet — mostly.

Gotham premieres tonight at 8pm ET on Fox. Here's our look at the first episode when it first screened at San Diego Comic-Con this summer.

In the opening moments of Fox’s new series Gotham, you follow a young, strangely mute Selina Kyle as she leaps up and down fire escapes, picking pockets and making mischief. You guess she’s supposed to be "young Catwoman" because of her signature goggles and her cat-like agility, but you never get a glimpse into her inner life.

You might consider yourself lucky if you survive the apocalypse, but if sci-fi movies are anything to go off of, what comes next is rarely a joyride. In Air, it looks like The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus and Djimon Hounsou (Gladiator, Blood Diamond) are about to find that out for themselves. The two are the sole caretakers of an underground bunker that holds that last remnants of humanity in a deep cryogenic freeze.

Unlike many of the sci-fi flicks being shown off at Comic-Con, Air looks like a slow burn of a thriller where the real dangers are mental, not physical. As Skybound Entertainment, the studio behind The Walking Dead TV show, games, and comics, explains, their "sanity is tested as they struggle to survive in the last bit of habitable space on Earth." According to The Hollywood Reporter, the low-budget film is produced by Robert Kirkman (also of The Walking Dead), and co-written by Christian Cantamessa, whose writing experience comes from video games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption. It's set to hit theaters next spring.

As its release date draws near, Ronald D. Moore took to San Diego Comic-Con to reveal more details about his upcoming series Outlander. Moore, known for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series, announced last year that he was working with cable channel Starz on an adaptation of the popular Diana Gabaldon novel, first published in 1991. This weekend, Starz released a full trailer for the series, and Moore answered questions about it at a panel and a private press session.

The series has been called Starz' Game of Thrones — it's a period-style drama with fantasy elements based on a series of heavy tomes with a large existing fan base. One of the central cast members even played Game of Thrones character Edmund Tully. In contrast to that series' ensemble cast, though, it's focused exclusively on the story of Claire Beauchamp, a World War II nurse who finds herself thrown back in time to 18th-century Scotland.

One of the best tie-in video games of all time is coming back for a third installment. Developer Telltale Games confirmed at Comic-Con yesterday that it'll make The Walking Dead season three. The news was revealed during panel held by Skybound Entertainment, the publisher of The Walking Dead comics on which the game and television series are based. Unfortunately, the developer didn't divulge details on the latest "season" of the story-driven video game, and it's unclear when it will be available. It's likely it won't be ready until 2015 — the final episode of season two has yet to be released, and the developer has two other, unrelated titles to ship this year. Nevertheless, we can't help but wonder: will Clementine make it?

Thunder Levin is in on the joke. The improbably named writer of SyFy’s notorious Sharknado has been making tongue-in-cheek disasters since 2008’s Mutant Zombie Vampires From The Hood. But it wasn’t until last year’s Jaws-meets-Twister disaster film that Levin hit pay dirt, attracting millions of viewers to a story that he has never described as anything but ridiculous. This year he hopes to do it again — the fan-named Sharknado 2: The Second One debuts Wednesday night on SyFy.

A new trailer released today gives the best look yet at what that struggle will be like for young Bruce, and also gives a good look at the Penguin and Jada Pinkett Smith's gangster / club owner Fish Mooney. The trailer also teases the presence of Arkham in the series. The city of Gotham is clearly in a bad place when the show begins, and with criminals beginning to take over, there'll certainly be plenty for Gordon to do. The first episode of the series will actually be screening tonight at Comic-Con, so you should see some first impressions of the upcoming show very soon — including right here at The Verge.

Guardians of the Galaxy looks like it's going to be a ton of fun, and apparently Marvel thinks that fans are really going to love it, because it just announced at Comic-Con that a sequel will arrive on July 28th, 2017. The announcement was Marvel's biggest surprise of the night, in what was otherwise a fairly quiet event in terms of details on its upcoming films.

Its panel opened with a big sizzle reel of Marvel films that concluded with a quick tease of the villain Thanos. The cast of Ant-Man then appeared on stage to talk about their upcoming film, and they showed a short clip of test footage that was just long enough to wow the audience. Two new cast members were announced for Ant-Man as well: Lost's Evangeline Lilly will be playing Hank Pym's daughter, Hope Van Dyne, and House of Cards' Corey Stoll will be playing the villain Yellowjacket.

Legendary Pictures found a huge success in Godzilla earlier this year, and now it plans on turning its attention to another huge monster: King Kong. At Comic-Con today, Legendary announced that it was developing a movie based around Skull Island, home of the oversized ape. While it isn't clear if we'll see Kong himself in the movie, there will almost certainly be plenty of other big and terrifying monsters on the island that the film's protagonists will have to contend with. It's scheduled for a release on November 4th, 2016.

Given that Legendary was also behind Pacific Rim — Guillermo del Toro's movie about gigantic battling robots — it's starting to look like it's found that crowds love to watch these super-sized creatures duke it out. It just announced that Godzilla 2 was in production too, and that movie will have even more monsters than its predecessor. Clearly, at Legendary, the monster movie is back.

Godzilla's return to theaters this summer was a huge success, and now Legendary Pictures has confirmed that it's making a sequel. At San Diego Comic-Con, the studio announced that director Gareth Edwards is back on board to helm the sequel, and it turns out that Godzilla won't be alone in this picture.

According to the studio's Twitter account, monsters Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah will join the classic beast from the deep. All three Kaiju have been featured in classic monster films from Japanese studio Toho, which made the original Godzilla film from 1954. They've also been featured in numerous other Godzilla films over the years. It's unclear if all three monsters will appear in Godzilla 2 or if they'll be spread out over a number of sequels. In one tweet, Legendary Pictures added that "several other classic monsters from Toho" will join Godzilla in "future franchise installments."

It was 3:55AM when we reached the end of the line. We’d already walked a full 1.09 miles, past people fast asleep in sleeping bags and lawn chairs, camped out from midday the day before. Doors wouldn’t open for another six hours. As we walked down this snaking mass of people behind the convention center, looking for the end, staffers in yellow polos gave us bemused looks. A few gave sympathetic nods. They were dealing with what might be longest line Comic-Con had ever seen. All for Hall H, where fans hope to catch glimpses of upcoming blockbusters like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Interstellar.

Even for an event famous for large crowds and long waits, this year’s endless line may represent a tipping point.

Director Zack Snyder surprised Comic-Con crowds this morning by opening up Warner Bros.' big panel with art and a teaser for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, as well as a first look at Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. While the footage isn't online, Snyder did tweet out the photo of Gadot — and it's perhaps the most exciting image that we've seen from the film to date. While Snyder's images of Batman and Superman were both gray and moody, Wonder Woman appears to be staring something (or someone) down with intensity, while embers from a fire scatter all around her.

Below, you can see the other three images that Snyder has released from the upcoming film.