After Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice put the launch of the DC/Warner Bros. universe on shaky ground, the studio came back swinging at Comic-Con Saturday armed with movie stars, brand new footage and a sense of humour.
The studio took over the fanfest for two hours, with Conan O’Brien as host, and the 6,500-some fans in Hall H got a glimpse of never-before-seen footage from the superhero all-star film Justice League from director Zack Snyder, as well as the action-packed first trailer for Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot.
Snyder and the cast flew in from London to tease Justice League, which is currently in production and not set to hit theatres until November 2017.
The lively Justice League footage highlights Bruce Wayne’s recruitment of what will be the Justice League team, including The Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa). Ben Affleck, who plays Bruce Wayne/Batman, hyped the film with his fellow cast mates, including Gadot and Superman actor Henry Cavill — putting to bed any lingering suspicions that his character was actually killed off for good at the end of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The lighter touch in the Justice League reel is likely a direct response to the widespread criticism of the self-seriousness of Batman v Superman, and will be a pivotal moment for the studio in bringing together all of the personalities that they hope will also stand on their own, much like Marvel and Disney have done with The Avengers.
Ben Affleck, the latest actor to don Batman’s cape and cowl, said he felt “tremendous amount of pressure” both starring in and directing the next stand-alone Batman movie.
“It’s terrifying and inspiring and really exciting because it’s one of most iconic, fascinating characters ever created in American drama,” he said.
Warner Bros. has 10 films pegged to the interconnected universe over the next few years including Suicide Squad, which comes out next month, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, and the stand alone Batman film, which Affleck is directing and starring in.
To kick things off, Affleck was joined on stage by all of his fellow directors David Ayer (Suicide Squad), Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman), James Wan (Aquaman), Rick Famuyiwa (The Flash) and Snyder.
“DC is the foundation of what we all know about comic books and heroes. To have my voice be a part of that is really exciting,” Famuyiwa said.
Wan, who made his name in horror films like the Saw and Conjuring films said that he’d be bringing some of that sensibility to Aquaman as well.
Neither Wan nor Famuyiwa had any footage to show, since The Flash and Aquaman don’t come out until 2018.
The baddies of Suicide Squad, out on August 4 in the UAE, took the stage too, including stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto.
Robbie’s comic book baddy Harley Quinn is one of the most hotly-anticipated characters among all the films due to emerge from Warner’s “DC Extended Universe” films.
The studio premiered the first trailer for Suicide Squad at last year’s Comic-Con and has since released plenty of footage.
Fans were ecstatic nevertheless when they were shown the film’s final trailer, which featured the bubblegum-popping Quinn using her martial arts skills to dispatch an adversary in an elevator.
“Everyone was doing all this action — I was doing it wearing heels,” Robbie said of the shoot, which took place last year in Toronto and Chicago.
Will Smith appeared to be having the most fun, joking with fans and telling the hall: “This is not a movie about good versus evil. This is a movie about bad versus evil.”
Not just superheroes
It wasn’t all comic books and superheroes in the studio presentation, though. Audiences saw the first trailer for Kong: Skull Island, a 1970s-set King Kong story starring Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman and Straight Outta Compton’s Jason Mitchell and Corey Hawkins, from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts that comes out in March 2017.
The movie, like previous incarnations, focuses on an expedition to Kong’s home island but this time is set in the 1970s.
The trailer hinted at a distinctly military flavour to Jordan Vogt-Roberts’s take on Kong, offering a split-second first look at the giant ape after two minutes of helicopters and explosions.
“What’s not cool about choppers and napalm and King Kong?” the director said.
“Kong is film history. Kong is where genre met mainstream,” Vogt-Roberts said of the classic character.
The studio also unveiled a trailer for The Lego Batman Movie, an irreverent, joke-packed spin-off of the breakout Lego Movie character voiced by Will Arnett set for February 2017.
Charlie Hunam was also there to tease King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword, which looks as frenetic and deadpan as most of director Guy Ritchie’s films.
