‘Massive pressure’: fantasy franchises go to war at Comic-Con

After a decade in which costume-clad superheroes fought for both cultural dominance and box office dollars, three classic fantasy franchises are poised to go head-to-head in a war for television and film eyeballs.

Three marketing campaigns – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and HBO’s House of the Dragon – collided in a clash of swords this weekend at the world’s biggest pop culture convention, San Diego’s Comic-Con.

Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke and Paddy Considine at the House of the Dragon panel at Comic-Con.Credit:Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

The first of the three to take itself to market was Paramount and eOne’s Dungeons & Dragons, which also had the honour of being the first major panel in the convention’s iconic Hall H in three years; the past two Comic-Cons in San Diego were cancelled because of the pandemic.

It was also the Comic-Con debut for one of the film’s stars, actor Hugh Grant. “We did try to come [to Comic-Con] with Sense and Sensibility but were turned away,” Grant quipped. Dungeons & Dragons is based on the tabletop game of the same name; the Hasbro-owned game is one of the most successful brands in the world.

That was followed by The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which perhaps delivered the most creatively robust panel of the Comic-Con weekend, with 25 cast and producers spread across a 90-minute appearance. Gift with purchase: a handful of previously unseen clips from the new series.

In addition to a star-powered panel, including Robert Aramayo who plays Elrond the half-elf, Morfydd Clark who plays the Elf warrior Galadriel, and Ismael Cruz Córdova who plays the bronze-skinned silvan elf Arondir, Lord of the Rings comes to market as a substantial financial gamble.

Amazon purchased the rights to the series for $US250 million and has bankrolled the series to the tune of an additional half a billion dollars. Many shows lay claim to the mantle of the most expensive television show in history – The Crown and The Get Down among them – but on the numbers it would be hard to challenge The Rings of Power.

But the weekend’s main event – aside from planned panels for the Warner Bros-owned DC and Disney-owned Marvel studios – was an appearance on the gargantuan Hall H stage from the cast and producers of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon.

The series is set in the world of Westeros, first introduced in the television drama Game of Thrones, but set some 150 years before the events of that series. At this point in the world’s history the royal house of Targaryens is in charge, politically empowered by their stable of 17 fire-breathing dragons.

But as you should expect from a Game of Thrones story, politics soon complicates family life, as the court is split between those who advocate for King Viserys’ daughter Princess Rhaenyra (Australian actress Milly Alcock) to succeed, and those who back his brother, Daemon (Matt Smith). “It’s [set] just before the bloom starts to come off the rose,” the show’s producer, Ryan Condal said.

Ismael Cruz Cordova and Nazanin Boniadi speak with Stephen Colbert on the Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power panel at Comic-Con.Credit:Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Paddy Considine, who plays King Viserys, described the Targaryen monarch as “a kind man who’s trying to keep the peacetime going within the kingdom. He loves his family and cares about his position, but he’s carrying something else.”

Smith, the former star of The Crown and Doctor Who, won the loudest applause from the Hall H audience as he took to the stage. The 39-year-old British actor described the relationship between King Viserys and his character, Prince Daemon Targaryen, as complicated. “Everything is about his brother for Daemon,” Smith said.

HBO, and the show’s Australian broadcaster Binge, are gambling that House of the Dragon will command the same fealty from its audience as the long-running hit Game of Thrones. And following in that show’s footsteps was daunting said actress Olivia Cooke, who plays Lady Alicent Hightower.

“There’s this behemoth that we’re following, and this massive pressure that we feel to give you guys what you want, to make it different, but also to put our own stamp on it,” she said. “We’re so grateful for what came before which was so amazing. And we just hope this has the same legacy because we worked our bums off for a year [to make it].”

Hugh Grant talks about Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves at Comic-Con.Credit:Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Making a rare public appearance, the creator of both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, George R.R. Martin, said a cameo in the new series was not likely. At least not yet.

“You may not know, but there’s this book that I’m writing, it’s a little late,” Martin said, referring to the still-unpublished final book of the Game of Thrones cycle, The Winds of Winter. Aware it is more than a few years overdue, the audience cheered.

“I don’t see me visiting a set or doing anything until I finish and deliver that book,” Martin said. “If the show is still going who knows, maybe I will show up.”

The 73-year-old novelist and screenwriter revealed he had filmed a small role in the Game of Thrones pilot back in 2009, but when the heavily-reworked first episode was changed his scene was cut. “They re-shot most of the pilot so I was left on the cutting room floor,” he revealed.

A second proposal, that Martin would appear as a severed head in a scene where the deranged Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) forces his betrothed Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) look at a wall of severed heads. But the effect was deemed to be too expensive. “So they just bought a box of used severed heads,” Martin said.

But even that was not without its own controversy, Martin noted. One of the heads used in the scene was a prop head of former president George W. Bush. When it was noticed, back in 2012, HBO was forced to apologise and digitally erase it from future broadcasts. “If you get one of the old DVDs you can see it,” Martin said.

“Who knows, maybe I can yet become a severed head,” Martin quipped.

San Diego Comic-Con runs until Monday, Australian time.

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