Fox Pulls Out of Comic-Con

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 19, 2007

First they allowed Brett Ratner to ruin the X-Men series. Since then, the fine folks at 20th Century Fox have continued to rub salt in the wounds of fanboys and those who serve them here on the web. Now in a monumental show of intelligence, Fox studios has pulled out of next week’s trip to fan boy Mecca, otherwise known as Comic-Con.

For months now, Fox has practiced some pretty unfair screening practices, as outlined by an article written by Peter at /Film. Around FSR central, we have shared stories of secret screenings from Fox in which newspaper critics (some with readership less than that of 1 week on this site) sit and view releases long before other critics. But despite their shunning of online film reviewers, Fox has not yet done something so dumb as to kick their fanbase in the collective left testicle.

That kick to the groin area of the fanboys of the world comes with their pulling out of this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego. Now don’t get me wrong, they weren’t bringing much to the show besides Timothy Olyphant as “Hitman”, “Alien vs. Predator” and “The Dark is Rising”; but the fact still remains that they said they would be there and they will not be present.

David Glanzer, Comic-Con’s director of marketing and PR spoke to the L.A. Times, who were the ones to break the story:

“Every major studio usually has a presence at Comic-Con so for Fox to pull out a week before is very unusual,” Glanzer said, adding that organizers were still trying to figure out how to fill the studio’s time slot. “We’re still going back and forth. We have in excess of 350 hours of programming so scheduling is like a giant Rubik’s Cube. Otherwise, this year every major studio has committed to show up and participate.”

The good news here is that we (the online press) won’t have to worry about getting snubbed by Fox in favor of some writer from your local high school periodical for an interview with Christopher Eccleston. Also, Comic-Con is still going to rock thanks to all of the other great studios who are bringing their biggest stars and biggest projects to Sunny San Diego to soak up some fanboy drool.

For more on Comic-Con, keep an eye on our Exclusive Comic-Con Homepage. We will be there. So should you.

Read more articles by Neil Miller