Marvel Studios has officially decided not to host its signature Hall H panel at San Diego Comic‑Con this July, marking a rare retreat from what has been among the biggest events in the entertainment calendar. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio’s reason is pragmatic: “With Avengers: Doomsday pushed back to December 2026… it didn’t feel like the right timing for a Hall H panel”. And while this is news we’ve known for a little while now, the new addition to Marvel’s release slate has everyone wondering if the mystery movie coming in 2028 has something to do with Marvel going silent.
Marvel Studios announces an untitled film releasing on December 15, 2028.
• That’s the studio’s 4th film releasing that year
• They also have another film set to release in November, 2028 pic.twitter.com/S5dgDOb09c
— Vaultedmag (@vaultedmag) June 19, 2025
While Marvel will still maintain a strong presence on the convention floor—complete with immersive exhibits and perhaps even an early screening of Fantastic Four: First Steps, opening during SDCC week—their avoidance of main-stage announcements is shaping up to be more strategic than circumstantial.
Josh Brolin as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Marvel Studios
Marvel’s absence from Hall H is raising eyebrows among fans and pundits:
-
Reddit users note historical patterns: “Marvel have missed SDCC in 2011… because they were working on the Avengers,” noted one user, adding, “It makes sense—they’re huddling right now.”
-
Current speculation paddles similar waters: “We’re probably getting the Doomsday trailer at SDCC 2026”, some suggest.
But what if that’s not the case? It certainly seems unlikely that Disney would hold a Doomsday trailer or reveal all the way until next summer, only six months before release. Surely they would do something with the Superbowl or D23 before then?
This retreat also coincides with Marvel’s most aggressive production plateau in years. With Avengers: Doomsday filming now (set for a December 18, 2026 release) and Avengers: Secret Wars to follow in December 2027, the studio is clearly in overdrive. Hall H, once a stage for high-velocity reveals, now seems like a risk zone: unfinished footage, cast as-yet unassembled, and marketing in flux. It also would likely be a prime opportunity for media and fans to ask questions Marvel doesn’t want to answer right now. And given the stakes after two flops (and a likely third) in 2025, Marvel can’t handle a misstep at the moment.
The Thunderbolts uniting in Marvel’s Thunderbolts – YouTube, Marvel Entertainment
In a move that contrasts sharply with the narrative of careful slowdown, Disney has quietly slotted an additional film for December 15, 2028. This now makes four MCU features scheduled that year—February, May, November, and now December.
The timing is important. It’s almost a given that Marvel won’t release four films in 2028. That means one of those movies is getting axed in all likelihood. But beyond that, a December release is quite possibly the biggest release of the year for all of Disney. That’s not a film that Disney is going to give to a long-shot. That’s the headline of the year. That’s the Avatar. That’s the Frozen film. Marvel is getting it and that means they’ve suddenly added something big just at the same time we’ve been earing that they may split the next Avengers movies into a trilogy. They’ve just announced delays for both known Avengers movies… and they’re coming out in December of 2026 and December of 2027. Now there’s a new movie scheduled for December 2028. Curious, eh?
This raises immediate questions: what is this mysterious December 2028 release? Speculation centers around either:
-
An X‑Men entry, potentially the MCU debut of mutants—fans on SuperHeroHype and GamesRadar have even invoked this possibilty.
-
A third consecutive Avengers film, extending the “Doomsday → Secret Wars” arc.
-
Or perhaps something unexpected like Blade 2, though X‑Men remains the strongest buzz. And doing a quirky release like Blade or a lesser-known quantity is exceedingly unlikely given how much Disney prizes a Christmas / New Years holiday release window.
Whichever it is, its quiet booking—with no accompanying trailer, casting info, or synopsis—points to a deliberate hold. Marvel might be shelving marquee announcements until D23 Expo 2026, when they expect both Doomsday and Secret Wars to be better defined.
Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Chris Evans as Captain America, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, and Mark Ruffalo as Hulk in The Avengers (2012), Marvel Entertainment
The bottom-line: something big just changed at Marvel, and the cancellation of marketing at one of the biggest events in entertainment came just a little too close to a big new movie mysteriously sitting in Disney’s most prime spot of the year. Either a trilogy or a reboot is likely happening in 2028… and Marvel doesn’t seem ready to talk about it.
Now if only we could get Tom Holland for an interview on the matter…
Pulling out of this marketing op looks ominous. It means, marketing budgets are being slashed. This is in line with that Disney Marvel’s gay marketers probably dreading much enraged pushback from all the Nerdrotics and Nerdroticesses, there. And, rightly so.
They lost me with casting a female Silver Surfer. I’m done with Disney’s self righteous take on characters that i loved.
Here’s a billion dollar idea to save Disney.
Reshoot Fantastic Four with Norrin Rad as Silver Surfer and release it at the same time as a variant version of the movie. You can have your cake and eat it too Disney. You’ll make way more money on the people that want to see it both ways. If Marvel had the testicular fortitude we would see what the fans want.