San Diego Comic-Con 2015 (& Beyond) Trailer Round-Up

Image Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Sherlock, The Hunger Games and Suicide Squad, oh my! There's only one place to catch the latest trails for all of those releases and more, and you're already here...
If a God of Entertainment existed (and who's to say that he, she or it doesn't, eh?), then earlier this month, they would no doubt have proclaimed the following command: "Let there be Comic-Con". Indeed, this year's San Diego Comic-Con made an impact not unlike that of a biblical deity as soon as its plethora of diverse teaser trailers hit the interwebs - either with the blessings of their respective studios or in some cases via the camera-phones of skilled leakers - with many of the aforementioned preview videos racking up millions upon millions of views over on YouTube.

Odds are that the most eagle-eyed members of our readership will already have experienced most of the motion content that SDCC 2015 had to offer, but even so, there's nothing wrong with indulging in repeat viewings from time to time, nor is the idea that our readers might have missed one or two of the key clips outside of the realms of possibility either. Regardless of what brought you here to our humble abode, dear reader, we're more than happy to oblige the masses' unspoken requests for a single, bumper-length article in which one can find all of the Con's finest reveals (as well as a few other much-discussed clips which launched in its aftermath with little in the way of subtlety but plenty of gripping new footage) with supreme ease.

• SHERLOCK 2015 SPECIAL PREVIEW CLIP - Answers on just how Moriarty seemingly cheated death in Sherlock Season Three's captivating finale, "His Last Vow", won't be forthcoming until Season Four airs in 2017 (its currently-rumoured broadcast window), it would seem. On the bright side, though, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have penned a new standalone special for the hit BBC detective drama set entirely in the Victorian era in which Arthur Conan Doyle originally brought his iconic Great Detective to life before the eyes of Britons across the nation. Whilst plot details will apparently have to wait for now, at least this oft-humorous first teaser clip confirms that we're in for another light-hearted romp in the vein of "The Sign of Three" rather than a somewhat morbid jaunt along the lines of "The Empty Hearse" later this year.

• THE FLASH SEASON ONE HIGHLIGHT REEL (& SEASON TWO TEASER) - Featuring a recap of the events of the frankly sensational opening run of The CW's already beloved Arrow spin-off, this intense five-minute montage caps itself off with a similarly engaging hint of what's to come by establishing the threat of a similarly esteemed Detective Comics antagonist going by the name of Professor Zoom, a character who'll apparently make his presence known in Central City known sooner rather than later once the series returns for twenty-two further instalments starting October 6th on The CW (and not too long after on Sky1 either, with any luck).

• BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE THEATRICAL TRAILER - Without a doubt, this bumper-length taster of next year's long awaited DC crossover blockbuster was by far the most anticipated release of Comic-Con, and what's more, for the most part the video in question hardly disappointed. Quite to the contrary, although the jury's still out on whether Snyder can produce something more nuanced than the mindless, overly action-driven fare of Man of Steel, ditto with regards to whether Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Lex Luthor will break his oh-so-tough Social Network mould, yet those quibbles aside, the notion of witnessing Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck's near-omnipotent protagonists wage war on the big-screen come March 25th, 2016 has just been made that much more of an appealing conceit.

• SUICIDE SQUAD FIRST LOOK - In a peculiar turn of fate, had the infamous Comic-Con leakers not returned in full force for this year's event, then the world's first look at David Ayer's take on the little-known DC comic-book saga Suicide Squad might not have surfaced for a fair few months yet. Instead, Warner Bros. Pictures were forced - for better or for worse, though we certainly weren't complaining given our inability to attend the relevant panel over in San Diego on the day itself - to release their previously closely-guarded SDCC preview reel for the so-called DC Extended Universe's second outing online just a few short days after the convention reached its timely denouement. Suffice to say that regardless of the turbulent road taken by Warner in order to reach this moment, the wait for official footage definitely seems worthwhile in hindsight, especially thanks to the reel affording us our first insights into Margot Robbie's quite possibly career-defining turn as Harley Quinn, a cameo or two from comic-book legends like Harley's relatively sane original alter-ego as well as the Dark Knight himself, not to mention an incredibly haunting coda featuring none other than Jared Leto's purportedly terrifying incarnation of everyone's favourite Clown Prince of Crime, all of whom will make their début on August 5th, 2016.

• SPECTRE THEATRICAL TRAIL - The name's Boring. Just...Boring. Try as we might to muster the same unparalleled levels of enthusiasm for Agent 007's twenty-fourth big-screen mission as we did in the case of his spectacular 50th Anniversary instalment - better known to the world at large as 2013's Skyfall, of course - neither Spectre's teaser trail nor the just-released second full preview have warranted any such elation from our perspective. With any luck Sam Mendes will once again have saved the best for the final product by keeping a tight hold over the precise plot titbits revealed by the marketing campaign just as he did last time around, yet if the disconcertingly familiar nature of the overblown action sequences teased so far via snow-capped mountains, predictably packed Latin American favellas and the like turns out to be in any way indicative of the overall narrative inspiration (or lack thereof) present in the screenplay, then November 6th might represent a date to remember for all of the wrong reasons just as Quantum of Solace went down in (completely disheartening) infamy back in 2008.

• THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 "WE MARCH TOGETHER" TRAIl - We'll gladly admit that the lack of pure thrills on offer within The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 last Winter came as a shock to our team even despite us already having read the source material upon which the piece was loosely based. That said, like Spectre's underwhelming sophomore effort at wooing back its franchise's sizeable fan-base, Mockingjay - Part 2 similarly appears intent on resting on its laurels from a marketing perspective, simply electing to clarify the ambiguous statement Gale made regarding a third Hunger Games competition taking place here in the Spring teaser trail before descending into the type of grand, undeniably explosive yet ultimately dramatically weightless fanfare most mainstream film fans will doubtless already have come to expect of big-screen series finales of this ilk (not least since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 effectively set such a rigid template as early as in 2011) rather than the more contemplative, personal sequences that those hoping for a 5* masterpiece might have rightly anticipated. One way or the other, the truth will be revealed for all of the planet Earth's countless factual districts to witness (and no doubt debate endlessly) this November 20th.

• DOCTOR WHO SEASON NINE FIRST LOOK - In a move that'll surely stun loyal followers of this blog, we here at On-Screen have every intention of skipping the Twelfth Doctor's second run of time-travelling exploits as a result of our severe disillusionment with last year's uneventful eighth season, but those Whovians who do opt to stick around should at least have a lot to look forward to based on the clips that BBC America unveiled during their dedicated Who Comic-Con panel. Daleks (modern and classic alike), Zygons, Missy (whose presence may well indicate that a refreshingly Gallifrey-centric plot arc's on its way), underwater bases (feel free to count the minutes until they're met with a siege, of course), Whispermen-esque advancing adversaries and Game of Thrones' very own Maisie Williams all represent but a handful of those constructs who'll be gracing the screens of BBC One viewers come September 19th, suggesting that even if the series has lost a few devotees such as ourselves of late, the remaining masses should certainly be kept engaged come the course of the science-fiction drama's impending return.

• LEGO DIMENSIONS "WORLDS COLLIDE" STORY TRAILER - Only TT Games could possibly forge a crossover narrative which melds together plot elements from cult classics like Back to the Future, Scooby Doo, The Simpsons, The Lord of the Rings and even Portal without buckling under the considerable weight of their respective fandoms' colossal (to say the very least) colossal expectations. Indeed, LEGO Dimensions' central campaign looks to pack one of the most visually, mechanically and tonally outrageous play experiences in recent memory as a result of its dabbling with franchises aplenty, as evidenced by this trail's manipulation of fan-favourite moments from both Rings and The LEGO Movie (not to mention multiple quarrelling incarnations of everyone's favourite Caped Crusader), although if nothing else, that TT's now-trademark style of game-play appears to simultaneously be fully intact should bode well given the consistently remarkable quality of the development team's recent licensed works like LEGO Jurassic World and LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. Whilst the real question regarding Dimensions is whether a 'new' IP of this ilk can possibly hope to match Skylanders and Disney Infinity so late on in the game (no industry pun intended - honest!), then, and whilst there's every chance its core narrative could sport no shortage of plot holes, odds are that from a mechanical standpoint, we're still in for another slightly unoriginal but nonetheless satisfyingly unhinged ride this September 29th. Bring it on, we say!

Our overriding aim here at On-Screen over the relatively news-lite Summer months will be to provide slightly less posts so as to enable us to collate many of the season's major reveals along with our definitive sentiments on each rather than simply tackling each from a (at times detrimentally) detached perspective. All being well, we're hoping to move onto even bigger and bolder pastures new as the Autumn months near and with them comes an almighty flurry of unmissable releases, but until then, why not let us know either on our Facebook page or over on our Twitter feed what you'd like to see from On-Screen in the future, or alternatively whether any of the SDCC (and indeed post-SDCC) trails presented above succeeded in peaking your interest to the extent that the studio(s) behind them had clearly intended?