The San Diego Comic Con

News and teaser trailer views, all the way from CA

Given names: San Diego Comic Con

Place of birth: California, USA

Date of birth: 21 March 1970

Alias(es): Golden State Comic Book Convention

Circled in red on the gilt-edged calendars of movie, TV, and game marketing execs around the globe, is the annual shindig at the most famous screen-focused gathering of them all. We are, of course, talking about the San Diego Comic Con. 2023’s cosplay Paradiso was, as ever, a hot hangout for fans, but this year’s event had a plot of its own…

… unless you’ve been on vacation, you’ll know all about the ongoing strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA). We’re not gonna lie, this did have an effect – but, really, it just came down to the famed Hall H being a quieter place than usual. And for us FXers, we still got our dopamine rush, because …

… Star Trek wasn’t affected.

This franchise which, since it debuted in 1966, has notched up 11 TV shows, 13 movies and countless video games, is the bestie that never lets us down. As innovative and magnetic as ever, Trek currently has four TV shows on air – the animated Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Lower Decks, as well as the live action Star Trek: Discovery and its Spock-centred spinoff Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Since kicking off this new chapter in the live action world of Star Trek in 2017, Discovery has set the bar for small screen special effects. Pixomondo is the show’s primary visual effects genius-in-residence, although other effects houses, such as Spin VFX, Ghost VFX, Crafty Apes, DNEG, The Mill, and FX3X have also put in a creative hand.

Did you know that the visual effects take, on average, eight-to-ten months to complete for each episode? No way you did, unless you’re a Trek insider, so just let that sink in for a mo. With that in mind, it’s no wonder the work on the series has earned Discovery a Best Visual Effects Emmy nomination for the episode “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”. The FX masterpieces kept on coming and gained an outright Emmy win for Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Single Episode – this one went to Season 3’s “Su’Kal”.

And that leads us nicely to the biggest Paramount+ Comic Con reveal. This year we were treated to an action-packed five-minute long sneak-peek clip from the upcoming final season of Discovery. This shiny new clip features Season 5’s regular and newest cast members, as well as a glimpse at some of the brilliant FX work we can’t stop talking about. Discovery’s final season won’t hit our screens until early 2024. Until then, click here for that sneak peak, Treksters.

Paramount+ also spilled the beans about Strange New Worlds’ upcoming episode number nine of Season 2. This is the first time that the franchise is going off-piste with a musical themed episode, the first ever in Star Trek’s history. The teaser trailer for this is found here.

In other FX news, there was a major Walking Dead spin-off announcement.

The Rick and Michonne series got an official title and teaser trailer when AMC unveiled The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, which will continue the couple’s apocalypse-shadowed love story. The zombies will be in your TV sets sometime next year. Until then, get yourself Walking Dead-ready by clicking here. Yep, those specialist zombie FX artists have been hard at work.

And bang on cue, was an announcement by Skybound Games about their new cooperation and deception creation, The Walking Dead: Betrayal. Betrayal is a multiplayer game set in The Walking Dead universe. Players will have access to the closed beta test on August 10, 2023, exclusively on PC via Steam, before the official release.

Ready to kick start your VFX, Gaming or Animation career?

Meanwhile what we at mustard FX want to know is if you’re going to be involved in the next big Comic Con announcements in San Diego next year. If you think you’ve got the FX goods, then we’ve got the jobs to get you inside Hall H. Don’t waste another moment – call us now on 0117 929 6060.