‘The Rings of Power’ to Dominate SDCC 2022

San Diego Comic-Con information has started to really ramp up the past few days, and it looks like The Rings of Power is going to be a central property at the con this year.

The Rings of Power is an upcoming Amazon Studios series based on Lord of the Rings.  It is currently scheduled to be released on Amazon Prime on September 2nd, 2022.  Episodes will be released on a weekly basis.  The story is set thousands of years before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and the first season will consist of eight episodes.  The series is expected to run for five seasons.

The hype for this series has been pretty strong for several years.  Things started getting seriously discussed back in 2018, so this is about four years of anxious chatter, two of which happened under pandemic conditions.  And yes, the pandemic did delay production a bit, but like most productions, they managed to pick things back up after a few months.

There’s certainly been build up the past few days for the show, including new sneak peaks at the content.  Considering its perfect release schedule just 6 weeks after Comic-Con, it should be no surprise that it’ll have a presence at SDCC.  It looks like that presence is going to be fairly significant.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that one of the largest fantasy franchises will have a huge presence at a con, but it’s still great to hear since it’s been a bit unclear how the first major SDCC (excluding the special edition) in three years will go.

The Rings of Power on SDCC Badges

We’ve been trapped in The Walking Dead badge hell for about a decade now.  Every year we get some gross looking zombies or grimy looking survivors to hang around our neck for the duration of the event.  Even when I was a fan of the show, it was growing a bit stale. They were just never very aesthetically pleasing, and then when I quit the show, it was a reminder of all the things that bothered me about it.

But now it looks like we’re getting The Rings of Power on them instead.  What a delightful reprieve!  Thank you, SDCC Gods! This is much appreciated.

#SDCC2022 Badges are here! Can’t wait to return to our favorite con this summer! #SDCC #TheNerdQueens #RingsOfPower pic.twitter.com/Ve73OlphDX

— NQ Cole & Nana 🇺🇦🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️She/Her (@TheNerdQueens) June 21, 2022

The design is very visually appealing.  Even if you aren’t a fan of Lord of the Rings, it’s something that’s easy to look at.  We don’t have to have a picture of a gross rotting corpse dangling around our neck and we can all rejoice!  Hopefully Amazon sticks around with this for a while and AMC doesn’t wrestle it back next year.  I’m very much over zombies.  As the series is expected to run for five seasons, I’m fairly hopeful that this is the case.

Early Look at The Rings of Power at SDCC

The Rings of Power will have a panel in Hall H!  That means there will be significant demand for Hall H, even if Marvel Studios chooses to skip.  The panel is expected to have an exclusive first look at the show.  The list of panelists at the moment is somewhat small, only confirming showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay for sure.  The announcement does tease that stars from the show will be there too, though.  Which ones? I’m not sure.  We’ll see, I guess.  Hopefully when the official schedules start to roll out two weeks before the con, we’ll have a more complete list.

It doesn’t look like they’ve officially announced what day they’ll be in Hall H, but I have a couple guesses.  If Marvel Studios skips, I would put money on The Rings of Power being placed on Saturday.  It will almost certainly be one of the (if not THE) biggest properties in that room and will deserve the coveted Saturday date.  If Marvel Studios does show up, this could still happen on Saturday but could also be bumped to Friday.  Other large fantasy properties have followed this pattern so that’s my educated guess.

Other Potential The Rings of Power Opportunities 

So far the badges and the panel with exclusive footage are the only ones confirmed.  I suspect we’ll get a couple more things, though. 

At the very least, I expect an offsite of some kind.  They are known for having fairly huge and complex offsites.  The only way I see them not doing this is if they’re worried about COVID.  If they’re already doing Hall H, where about 7,000 people will be crammed together for the better part of a day, I don’t think this is a huge concern for them, though.  At most I expect their offsite to be scaled down, but not entirely eliminated. 

I would not be surprised to see the series advertised on something official for the con or a nearby building, either.  A lot of companies tend to claim the same things every year – the WB has the official bags, the Hilton Bayfront is usually wrapped by FX, etc. Sometimes these things change, though.  After all, the badges used to be firmly used by AMC, but now Amazon Prime has taken them over.  Knowledge of previous conventions is helpful, but not a definitive indicator. 

Some things are more variable on a pretty much yearly basis.  The MTA trolleys and the SDCC shuttle buses have been used by quite a few different companies.  While we know some of those will be Abbott Elementary, who knows what hasn’t been wrapped yet. A new one was spotted this morning, which is for a different Amazon Prime property, so we know they’re utilizing that advertising option for something!

Stay Tuned for More SDCC News!

The Geekiary crew is gearing up for the con so stay tuned!  This year the convention will be covered by Angel, Jamie, and Stacey.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter for live updates from the con and subscribe to our YouTube channel for our press room coverage.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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