DCFanDome - Day 1 Highlights

Originally this was going to be a one day event but due to the demand and the fact that the DCFanDome site kept crashing, the wise decision was made to push the majority of the TV segment to a second day - September 12th.

In this blog alone, my coverage will focus on the movie side of things, but note that there also trailers for the games Gotham Knights (due in 2021) and Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League (due in 2022) that were also interesting as well as a trailer for the seventh season of The Flash CW show and spoilers for Titans upcoming third season. These will be looked at in the next blog.

Here, the focus is on upcoming movies and without further ado, here we go ....

Wonder Woman 1984 kicked off things in style with writer/producer Patty Jenkins and her cast of Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal all joining in to hype up the movie, due for theatre only release from October 2nd. The cast were also joined by Lynda Carter herself and it was an added bonus to an already lovely opening panel. The second trailer was also released with a proper look at Kristen Wiig in action as Cheetah and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that it's not a Cats style misfire. After waiting so long for this movie, it's nice to know we're closer to witnessing Diana's second big screen solo adventure. 

WW84 Final Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OASpkr_ljhw

The Flash then also made a splash, albeit a shorter one as of yet, filming for this movie will not commence until early next year in order to meet it's June 3rd 2022 date. We had director Andy Muschietti, writer Christina Hodson and lead actor Ezra Miller talk about some plot point and it continues to be clear that this will be a variation on the classic Flashpoint comic. Also revealed a few days before the event was that both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck will be returning to the movie as their respective versions of Batman while some concept photos show that Barry will also get a brand new suit made for him. You can also expect more casting to be confirmed over the next several months as the film gears up for production.

A little closer of course would be The Suicide Squad, still slated for August 6th 2021 and James Gunn made one hell of a splash here with the reveals. The new characters in this movie will be Peacemaker (John Cena), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Thinker (Peter Capaldi), Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Weasel (Sean Gunn), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Savant (Michael Rooker), King Shark (Steve Agee), Sol Soria (Alice Braga), TDK (Nathan Fillion), Javellin (Flula Borg), Tyla DuBois (Storm Reid), Flo Crawley (Tinashe Kajese), Mongal (Mayling Ng), Presidente General Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), Major General Mateo Suarez (Joaquin Cosio) while Taika Waititi and Julio Riuz's roles have yet to be disclosed. Appearing from the previous film are Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnanman). The roll card was a great way to hype up this movie and the behind the scenes look gave us a good taster of the chaos coming our way with this motley crew.

TSS Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8tWKJwyG6Y

Three months since HBO Max made a lot of fans happy and following his own fan panel a month before, this was the place where Zack Snyder could reunite with his JL members (minus Jason Momoa) and unveil the trailer for Zack Snyder's Justice League. I'll admit aside from a rather bland song choice, the trailer sold this pretty well and it's clear as day that we're going to be seeing something completely different to the theatrical release. This will now be a four episode series to be released on HBO Max in 2021 with deals for international airings to be sorted in the next few months. There will also be an option to watch this as a movie as well. Expect to see several characters that you didn't back in 2017 in this miniseries as well as expanded scenes for others too. 

ZSJL Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6512XKKNkU

As for Dwayne Johnson - you gotta admire the guy. He's a one man promotion machine and while I've had my reservations for Black Adam (due December 22nd 2021), this panel did give us some things to mull over. First of all, we had Noah Centineo's casting as Atom Smasher confirmed as well as the JSA members  Hawkman, Doctor Fate and Cyclone being confirmed for the movie with casting soon to come. We also got some concept art of the characters and concept trailers explaining Black Adam's backstory. 

Black Adam Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N73oTiIIJe0

And then we got the panel with the least amount of information and absence of it's leading star. We did however have director James Wan and Orm himself, Patrick Wilson but seeing as the sequel to Aquaman is the furthest away (December 16th 2022), I'm not surprised that not too much was revealed. We did learn the sequel will be a little more serious and relevant along with the promise of new worlds being explored but we're a while off before we get anything really juicy to go over.

Then there was Shazam! The cast were joined by comedian Sinbad and while we're also another while off from the sequel (November 4th 2022), we did learn that it will be called Shazam!: Fury Of The Gods and with filming due to begin in early 2021, casting information will probably start leaking towards the end of the year. Again, a rather short but decent enough panel. Of course the best was clearly being saved until last.

The Batman of course being the best and in news that will shock absolutely no one whatsoever, the most trending topic of the night with the  trailer trending on every platform. Let's talk about the trailer: it was incredible. Robert Pattinson is going to be a definitive take on the Dark Knight and Paul Dano's Zodiac Killer esque take on the Riddler is genuinely chilling to watch. Colin Farrell looks unrecognisable as the Penguin, Jeffrey Wright looks great as Jim Gordon and while I'm not keen on Catwoman's makeshift look, Zoe Kravitz seems to have the character's mannerisms down perfectly. It's also been revealed that Rupert Penry Jones will play a corrupt mayor in the movie and one of the Riddler's first victims while Barry Keoghan will also play Officer Stanley Merkel. The movie itself certainly has captured the moodiness and Gothic quality of the comics, with a bit of Gotham and Batman: The Animated Series added into the mix. Meanwhile the upcoming HBO Max series focusing on the GCPD will be set during Batman's first year while the movie itself will be based in his second year. So far, only 30 per cent of the movie has been filmed with production resuming next week but it's really looking amazing so far. October 1st 2021 cannot come fast enough.

The Batman Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59rUQbVlIw

Those were the highlights of the first day of DCFanDome. Servers crashing and trailer leakage to one side, I think it was a bloody success. Day 2 - September 12th will have a lot to live up to, but I'll cover the highlights.