Ranking All The Major SDCC 2016 Movie Trailers From Worst To Best

Warner Bros. brought the most, but did they bring the best?

Comic Con Trailers
Warner Bros. Pictures/Marvel

They might as well start calling San Diego Comic-Con "Trailer-Con", given how much media focus on the massive celebration of all things in geek culture is about the trailers released by major studios somehow linked to pseudo-geek culture. Buy, hey, who are we to complain? New trailers for far off movies are exciting and serve as a reminder that no matter how iffy this year's crop of movies may be, there's always hope for the future.

It's not just excitement that's at stake, however. With so many competing studios, the conversation eventually goes to who "won" Comic-Con, and this year it was indisputably Warner Bros. Not because their films necessarily look the best or got people the most excited, but because they learnt from the leak of Suicide Squad last year and decided to release all seven of their trailers online. By comparison, the other studios offered slim pickings for the those not in attendance, and while it's certainly cool to have confirmation that Brie Larson is Captain Marvel, it can't match fresh footage.

But despite getting the most out there, did Warners deliver the best of the weekend? Or was it a case of less actually being more? Let's take a look through all ten major trailers released and rank them from worst to best.

10. King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword

Comic Con Trailers
Warner Bros. Pictures

Nobody asked for a Guy Ritchie King Arthur film, but nevertheless it's been threatening on the horizon for the past couple of years with a summer 2017 spot. And now it has a trailer that looks exactly like we all expected.

The first half actually looks really interesting: with Charlie Hunnam's Arthur jokily explaining him and his "lads" escapades to Roose Bolton, it feels like a Guy Ritchie film, rather than a film with Guy Ritchie's name on it. Then we get to the sword in the stone and the actual mythology side, however, and it all goes to pot, looking ultimately like a very drab, periodically-confused film (why is Arthur wearing Bane's coat?). There's demon-eyed Jude Law and a cool zoom on Littlefinger firing an arrow and a worried-looking Eric Bana, but the only thing that's really awe-inspiring is how Ritchie got such a good cast together for what looks like such a bland take on a done concept.

The trailer is really selling two different things, one that could be very interesting but that gets overshadowed by generic fantasy. It came in the middle of Warner Bros. panel and certainly got the most tepid reaction, although there's really nowhere it could have been a hit.

Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.