Top Five Comic Con International: San Diego 2014 Announcements That Did Not Happen

Every year, fans go into Comic Con International: San Diego expecting huge, game-changing announcements.

Some years, it happens: In 2012, for instance, Marvel laid the groundwork for its 2014 success as well as officially announcing Edgar Wright's Ant-Man and bringing The Guardians of the Galaxy onstage for their presentation. Other years -- like last year, or this one -- not so much.

Here are some of the biggest stories everyone thought they'd be talking about this week, and are not.

No Doctor Strange Casting News

Yes, we all want to know what the Captain America 3 subtitle will be and had hoped to hear a little more about what movies will hit between Ant-Man and Avengers 3. Still, the thing pretty much every Marvel Zombie wanted to know was who will play Doctor Strange.

With the movie already confirmed and expected to go into production at some point in 2015,  it seems (like Ant-Man that they're pushing their timeline to its absolute limit. Is that just Marvel's patented secrecy, or is there something bigger at play? We've heard that the Jon Hamm rumors a while back were well-founded and that Marvel got cold feet because of Hamm's age relative to the other Marvel superheroes (Robert Downey, Jr. notwithstanding, apparently). There have been at least two writing team changes that we know of and a potential blockbuster piece of casting for the film's villain seems to have fallen through the cracks along the way while filmmakers prioritized getting a lead for the film.

So...what happened?

No DC Entertainment Production Slate

We've talked about this already, but it bears repeating: this was, many fans thought, supposed to be the year that DC went all in on their cinematic universe.

Instead, their TV announcements kicked butt up and down Comic Con -- but on the film side, people really wanted to hear for sure that we were getting Batman and Wonder Woman movies. Instead of the seven-movie slate that was teased by entertainment journalist Nikki Finke's sources, though, there was no major announcement at all from Warner Bros. and DC. Not even official start dates or release dates on Justice League and Sandman, movies already known and confirmed to be in development.

To top that all off, a source revealed to ComicBook.com during the show that the Finke list is either inaccurate or at least incomplete.

No Young Justice Announcement

Okay, so this one technically had an announcement, but it wasn't what people were expecting or hoping for. 

The Young Justice announcement teased for the Warner Archive panel was that the series was coming to Blu-ray. That would have been enough to thrill fans eager to support the series AND upgrade to hi-def...except that the phrasing of some of the panel's publicity left some fans (and even us) hoping for, and expecting, more.

A TV movie? A video game sequel? A final season to wrap things up?

All of that was bouncing through people's heads, and what they got was literally no more than what Weird Al got for UHF.

No iZombie Pilot

iZombie was one of a number of DC Entertainment titles set to debut its pilot at Comic Con International this weekend, but at the last minute came the announcement that, unlike The Flash, Gotham and Constantine, iZombie would not be screened for the fans at the convention.

Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas says that the iZombie pilot isn't ready to be seen by the public yet, since they're going to recast some of the roles and go back for reshoots. The cast that will be hanging around, however, killed at the panel (where they did show a 15-minute, Rose McIver-heavy clip from the show) and with the press after the fact.

You can check out our exclusive interview with series star Rose McIver here. More iZombie interviews will be coming throughout the week.

No big movie screenings

Back in 2012, ComicBook.com was among the first to see Dredd 3D. 

We loved it.

That was screened at a cinema in San Diego, not far from the convention center, in spite of the fact that the film's street date was still about four months away at that point.

Marvel, of course, has Guardians of the Galaxy coming out this Friday and Dimension has Sin City: A Dame to Kill For just a couple of weeks after that, but neither of those films was screened in San Diego for the public (or even a hand-picked audience like Dredd was).

They warned us ahead of time that would be the case, at least for Guardians, but it still seems like a missed opportunity...!