The Reason Why Marvel is Skipping This Year’s SDCC

The COVID-19 pandemic may have forced the organizers of this year's San Diego Comic-Con International to cancel the physical convention itself, however, the annual multi-genre entertainment and comic book convention is moving onwards with an online iteration called Comic-Con@Home.

As exciting as it may be for pop culture fans to experience Comic-Con from the comfort of their homes, major franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and DC have opted out of this year's convention. While this may not be all that surprising for Marvel fans knowing that Marvel Studios has skipped SDCC before, Screen Rant reports that Marvel's absence has been caused by very different reasons.

According to the entertainment news outlet, Marvel decided to skip out on Comic-Con@Home because of its confirmed schedule and the production status of their projects.

Right now, Marvel only has a few Phase 4 films in its roster before the beginning of SDCC 2021 and that includes Black Widow, The Eternals, and of course, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Out of these three, only Scarlett Johansson's first standalone movie and Chloe Zhao's comic book movie based on Marvel comics ancient race have completed principal photography.

Because of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Marvel was forced to temporarily shut down the production of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Marvel has also been forced to delay the release of its upcoming shows like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. With so little material to speak about, it makes sense that Marvel would opt out of SDCC this year.

Of course, that doesn't mean that Marvel won't be dropping information out of the blue. It is an established brand, and whatever it announces online will help generate buzz for the studio.

Let's just hope Marvel makes a few good movie announcements soon.

Read: Disney+'s Ms. Marvel Series to Start Shooting in November