Retrospective 2018- A Year in Film

July

High Summer Hijinks

Image sources: Paramount, Disney, Warner & A24

July brought the big summer blockbusters out to play, with sequels like ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘, ‘Incredibles 2’ and ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ taking audiences and the box office by storm, and other studio films like ‘Skyscraper’ and ‘Hotel Artemis’ making less of a mark. Meanwhile selective UK audiences were also treated to some smaller scale independent fare, including Paul Schrader’s contemplative drama ‘First Reformed‘ and period biopic ‘Mary Shelley’.

The Con 2018

Once again high summer in Northern California saw the yearly mass geek pilgrimage to San Diego, as fans and media conglomerates alike converged on the city’s oceanfront for the world’s biggest comic-book, video game, film and pop-culture convention—giving us all a glimpse of what to expect over the next 12 months and beyond. You can check out our full movie recap of Comic-Con 2018, featuring cast panel videos and more, below is a taste of some of this year’s movie highlights.

Universal in the House

Glass

Image Source: Getty Images

With major players like Marvel and Lucasfilm giving Comic-Con a miss entirely this year, no doubt saving their wares for Disney’s own expanding convention, Universal pictures jumped on the chance at a Hall H return, kicking off their promotional efforts with a panel for the sequel to 2016’s ‘Split’ and third film in M. Night Shyamalan gritty superhero/supervillain mystery trilogy, ‘Glass’. The writer/director was joined in Hall H by his stars Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy, ‘Glass’ is out in UK and US cinemas on the 18th of January 2019.

Halloween

Image Source: Getty Images

Fans in Hall H were also treated to some iconic horror on Friday, as ‘The Shape’ stalked the con this year when director David Gordon Green brought along his star Jamie Lee Curtis and Blumhouse supremo Jason Blum for a panel to talk the latest Michael Myers outing ‘Halloween’—a sequel to the 1978 original, taking place forty years after those events and erasing thirty-seven years of sequels.

Bros. Steal the Show

Wonder Woman 1984

Image Source: Getty Images

Taking full advantage of Disney’s absence this year, Warner Bros. took over Comic-Con on Saturday and upped the convention’s superhero film credentials with panels for some of their most anticipated releases. After the massive success of last year’s ‘Wonder Woman’, director Patty Jenkins returned to Hall H with stars Gal Gadot and Chris Pine to talk and tease their in early production sequel ‘Wonder Woman 1984’, discussing the films 80s setting . . . but not revealing how the hell Steve Trevor made it there. ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is out June 2020.

Aquaman

Image Source: Getty Images

Armed with a few more treats to delight the Hall H masses and with a more imminent release date, director James Wan brought along his stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Amber Heard and his lead Jason Momoa, to talk about their Arthur Curry origin story and latest film in the DC Extended Universe ‘Aquaman‘.

Shazam!

Image Source: Getty Images

Comic-Con this year also gave us a solid glimpse of the newest addition to the DC Extended universe, as Zachary Levi was joined by his co-stars Asher Angel and Jack Dylan Grazer, plus director David F. Sandberg, to talk about the foster kid who can transform into a superhero with one magic word in a panel for the upcoming ‘Shazam!’, potentially DC’s answer to ‘Deadpool’—out on the 5th of April 2019 in the UK and US.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Image Source: Getty Images

J. K. Rowling’s ‘Wizarding World’ also returned to Hall H on Saturday, as Warner Bros. stepped away from the comic-book realm to delight the Hall H crowd with a panel for the next installment of the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ series, ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald‘. Along with star Johnny Depp delivering an in-character spellbinding monologue for the unsuspecting crowd, the film’s stars Alison Sudol, Claudia Kim, Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller, Jude Law, Zoe Kravitz, Callum Turner, Katherine Waterston and Dan Fogler assembled to talk all things magic and “sexy Dumbledore”.

You can check out our full July Comic-Con movie recap here.

Those We Lost

Image source: Warner, Sony & NBC

July saw the passing among others of Golden era teen idol and Hollywood star Tab Hunter (86) (Battle Cry, Damn Yankees) and American TV veteran Roger Perry (85) (Star Trek, The Facts of Life), plus Dutch US TV star Robert Wolders (81) (The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Laredo) and American TV veteran Elmarie Wendel (89) (3rd Rock from the Sun, NYPD Blue).

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