Latest in Hero Nation

The film studios may be taking a back seat this year inside the San Diego Convention Center at Comic-Con, but the always vigorous battle for skyscraper space, square footage and activation attractions in San Diego is no less full throttle. In a typically crowed skyline, the clear winner this week is Fox Animation…

"It's the most purely promotional thing that exists," Deadline's Genre Editor Geoff Boucher declares bluntly of the superhero- and science fiction-fueled extravaganza that is San Diego Comic-Con. "It's as personal as an auto-show," the Hero Nation kingpin adds of the 50th annual confab that kicks off today. In that…

John Carpenter is taking his Hollywood horror sensibilities to Gotham City, with DC Comics’ recent announcement that the director of The Thing, Halloween, and The Fog is co-writing a special 40-page Joker comic book. Carpenter isn’t the only Hollywood notable dabbling in the comic book world — far from it, in fact, he…

CBS All Access has released the key art for the high-profile series Star Trek: Picard and the images hint that this new iteration of the Star Trek brand will (at least initially) present a grounded tale instead of the usual planet-hopping quest. The image (below) shows a contemplative Jean-Luc Picard, notably dressed…

Spider-Man: Far From Home (which opens Tuesday) imports a newcomer to cinema’s ever-expanding superhero sector: Jake Gyllenhaal, the 38-year-old Oscar nominee who has a wildly eclectic body of work but has somehow managed to avoid the pervasive superhero genre until now and the release of Far From Home, his 38th…

For close to a decade, it’s been an impossible task for any film trying to beat Avatar‘s mammoth all-time global box office record of $2.79 billion. In fact, it’s a box office feat filmmaker James Cameron actually had to top himself: Prior to Avatar, Cameron’s Titanic with a lifetime of $2.19B worldwide was the…

So many comedy stars have now invaded the horror genre that it’s not even funny. This month, it was Orion Pictures pouncing on a Scandinavian slasher pitch by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Last month, Lionsgate trumpeted Chris Rock as the idea man and executive producer who can pump new lifeblood into the studio’s rusty S…

James Wan, the executive producer of Swamp Thing, the DC Universe series that was abruptly canceled last week after one episode had streamed, shared his baffled reaction to the axing in a post on Instagram. “Don't really know or understand why #Swampthing was cancelled,” he wrote, “but I can tell you this — all the…

SPOILER ALERT: This article includes key revelations from issue No. 192 of The Walking Dead, which goes on sale this week.  Ex-lawman Rick Grimes has been M.I.A. on AMC’s The Walking Dead since last November (when star Andrew Lincoln left the powerhouse series to focus on the upcoming tie-in feature film trilogy) but…

EXCLUSIVE: For moviegoers interested in a new way to experience Spider-Man, Sony has set its first partnership with CJ 4DPlex to convert this summer’s Spider-Man: Far from Home into the 270-degree, panoramic ScreenX format. The July 2 release will be the studio’s first in the new format. Sony and CJ had previously…

The next feature outing in the Star Wars franchise will be a new installment directed by Game of Thrones executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, Disney CEO Bob Iger has confirmed. The company boss ended his appearance at an investor comment in New York with updates about the Star Wars universe. The entry by…

Disney CEO Bob Iger and CFO Christine McCarthy took on a range of topics during the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call with Wall Street analysts Wednesday after the company reported strong results. Among the notable takeaways from the call were Iger asserting a cautious approach to Hulu — of which…