Warner Bros.

With all due respect to everyone on Twitter at Comic-Con, for my money, the hottest of possible hot takes from this past weekend belonged to screenwriter Zack Stentz. “The worst part of Justice League,” Stentz wrote, “is gonna be the fanboys and bad culture writers claiming to know which parts are Snyder and which are Whedon.” It’s true. Even the Comic-Con Justice League trailer seemed to be an inseparable mashup of Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon’s sensibilities, alternating between alpha posturing and awkward self-parody with regularity. The mind already aches with the number of articles that will be written about Justice League attempting to give credit to the author’s preferred filmmaker.

Despite the fact that Blade Runner 2049 is only the second movie in this franchise - can we call it a franchise if there’s only two friends? I’m asking for a friend - you’ll be completely forgiven if you’ve lost the thread on the events leading up to this film. Not only will the time jump between Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 probably leave a few fans in the dust, the first film was never particularly forthcoming with its own mythology, asking fans to piece together some of the political and technological events that led to the replicant revolution. Like the best science fiction, it was a movie that contained multitudes, even if it wasn’t always compelled to share them.

Say what you will about Warner Bros., but they’ve always saved some of their best Justice League footage for Comic-Con. Last year we were treated to our first extended look at the DCEU entry; this year the studio has raised the stakes, giving us some actual footage of the Justice League villain in action. Oh, and this trailer also seems to emphasize the heck out of the world of Wonder Woman - including a scene set entirely in Themyscira - indicating that they know exactly who their most popular superhero is going forward. It’s probably not a coincidence that there’s more Gal Gadot in this trailer than anyone else.

With rumors swirling that Ben Affleck would be stepping down from his role as Batman after Justice League, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Warner Bros. needs to have a big day this weekend at Comic-Con. They need to be prepared to discuss Affleck’s rumors directly - confirming or denying as they see fit - and show off some footage for Justice League that keeps fans excited about the movie, regardless of the rumors circulating around it. Even those who believe that Warner Bros. has charted a new direction for itself with the addition of Joss Whedon and the success of Wonder Woman would admit that the studio has its work cut out for it.

Look, I’ll be honest: despite the runaway success of 2014’s The LEGO Movie and last year’s The LEGO Batman Movie, I was never really sure why Warner Bros. was moving forward with The LEGO NINJAGO Movie as the third entry in its LEGO cinematic universe. Maybe I’m completely out of touch - “No, it’s the children who are wrong!” - but the NINJAGO series of video games and movies doesn’t have quite the same pull as the licensed LEGO toys. Besides, isn’t NINJAGO basically just an animated version of Power Rangers? Does the summer really need a second one of those?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an undeniable sci-fi classic, the O.G. one-of-us-in-this-room-isn’t-human narrative, which is probably why it’s been remade so many, many times. The original 1954 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney inspired the 1956 Don Siegel film, which was then remade in 1978, in 1993, and agin in 2007 with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman (The Invasion). So it should come as no surprise that Warner Bros. is making plans to reboot the story for the modern era.

Yesterday we learned San Diego Comic-Con would bring big news for Wonder Woman with Warner Bros. finally confirming our hopes of a Patty Jenkins-directed sequel. That’s bound to be just a sliver of the big news to come out of the studio’s panel on Saturday, and ahead of it we’ve already learned the sequel’s potential release date.

The San Diego Comic Con schedules have been rolling out all week, and Warner Bros. has a bunch of heavy hitters this year to possibly keep Marvel and Disney from stealing too much of the spotlight. Warners takes over Hall H on Saturday, July 22 at 11:30 AM, starting with a showcase of all their exciting upcoming releases, hosted by master of ceremonies Chris Hardwick.

Modern takes on the classic Hanna-Barbera toons have had trouble getting off the ground, but The Jetsons may literally rise above. Reports indicate a new live-action version of the far-out future family is gearing up for Warner Bros., executive produced by someone with a little Future experience.

Here’s a bit of a thought experiment. What, in your estimation, are major movie studios for? In the most basic and obvious terms, they exist to finance, facilitate the production of, and distribute motion pictures. But it’s not that simple — what ambitions should that work represent? Does a studio use its clout, resources, and organization to endorse art, to give a voice (and budget) to filmmakers who can entertain and challenge us, hopefully well enough to make a tidy sum for the studio as well? Or is the lone purpose of a movie studio to generate money, film production just happening to be the method by which they’ve chosen to do that?