Two full days into SDCC 2026, and the con’s really hitting its stride. The lines are longer, Hall H has officially stopped being polite about scheduling and panels are stacked back to back with barely enough time to get from one room to the next honestly.
Star Wars Detours Finally Sees the Light of Day
Buried inside the “Inside the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art” panel today was a reveal Star Wars fans have been waiting over a decade for. Seth Green, joined by Robot Chicken partner Matthew Senreich and moderator Keke Palmer, confirmed that Star Wars Detours, the shelved animated comedy series he and George Lucas made back in 2012, will finally be shown publicly at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art when it opens September 22.
For anyone who wasn’t following this story back in the day: Detours was a Simpsons-style comedy take on the Star Wars universe, set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, with nearly 40 completed episodes and Green voicing Obi-Wan alongside a cast that included Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, and Seth MacFarlane. Disney bought Lucasfilm right as it was finishing production, got nervous about introducing a comedy version of these characters ahead of The Force Awakens, and just shelved it. For 14 years!
There’s a catch, though. This isn’t a streaming release or a home video drop. A curated selection of episodes will play exclusively at the museum itself, so if you want to see it, you’re making a trip to South LA, not opening an app. Still, after over a decade of Green saying this show would probably never see daylight, hearing him confirm it live at SDCC felt like a genuinely rare “I did not expect this today” moment.
The Rings of Power Panel Gave Us the Day’s Best Reaction
If you want to know which panel actually made Hall H erupt today, it was The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Jamie Campbell Bower, who is joining the cast as Celeborn in Season 3, got one of the biggest reactions of the entire day and it wasn’t for a trailer or a reveal, it was for something a lot more human.
Bower shared that he broke down in tears when he found out he’d been cast. This is something that can be easy to forget, in between all the trailers and franchise announcements, that stepping into Tolkien’s world means something real to the actors doing it too, not just the fans watching. This was one of those moments that reminded everyone in that room why they showed up in the first place.
Queen of the Damned Is Officially Next
AMC used today’s Vampire Lestat panel in Hall H to confirm what a lot of Anne Rice fans had been quietly hoping for: Queen of the Damned is coming as the next chapter of the Immortal Universe, following directly on from The Vampire Lestat’s recent season finale.
For anyone who hasn’t been following the book progression, Lestat’s story was always headed toward Akasha, the original vampire queen, and Sheila Atim is already cast in the role. The panel leaned into “One Night Only Live” performance highlights from Lestat’s music-driven season before getting into what’s ahead. Between this, Mayfair Witches, and Talamasca, AMC’s basically running its own connected franchise the same way Marvel does, just with a lot more blood and considerably better needle drops.
Lanterns Takes Its First Bow at Comic-Con
DC’s Lanterns finally got its Hall H moment at 1:30, with Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre leading a panel built around the show’s approach to Hal Jordan and Sinestro. This is the next big swing from James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios version, arriving after Supergirl underperformed at the box office, so there was a little extra weight on this one proving DC still has momentum outside the movies. New footage doubled down on mystery rather than answers. It’s more moodier and more grounded than a typical Green Lantern movie.
And then came the moment that’s already all over my timeline: Pierre, Chandler, and a surprise Nathan Fillion got up together and recited the Green Lantern Oath, live, in Hall H. “In brightest day, in blackest night” hitting in that room, from three actors who clearly meant it, is exactly the kind of unscripted goosebumps moment that no trailer could’ve delivered. It premieres on HBO Max August 16. I think I’m sold.
Spaceballs: The New One Brings the Schwartz Back to Hall H
At 4 PM, Hall H shifted gears entirely for Spaceballs: The New One, and this was the panel most people I talked to wanted to see, mostly because nobody outside the studio had seen a single frame of footage before today (not even at CinemaCon), where they showed the press stuff but kept this panel’s material under wraps.
Rick Moranis and Mel Brooks are back, alongside Bill Pullman and Daphne Zuniga, joined by new cast additions Josh Gad, Keke Palmer, Anthony Carrigan, and Bill Pullman’s real-life son, Lewis Pullman, playing Lone Starr and Vespa’s kid. The plot description alone tells you everything about this movie’s sense of humor: a villain so lazy and unoriginal that its entire plan is just bringing back everything old, all at once. The film’s set forty years after the original, fifty years after A New Hope, and one year after The Devil Wears Prada 2. It opens April 23, 2027.
Daryl Dixon Confirms Its Final Season
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon returns for its fourth and final season in 2027. Norman Reedus broke the news himself on Instagram, marking the last day of filming. He thanked fans for sticking with him and Melissa McBride “through the good, the brutal, and everything in between.”
The news got reiterated in person at The Walking Dead: Dead City’s panel, where TWD Chief Content Officer Scott Gimple confirmed it directly, even though Reedus and McBride themselves skipped SDCC this year ahead of the final season’s release. Season 4 picks up with Daryl and Carol stranded in Spain and actually getting home to North America after years of detours. And there’s still a loose thread everyone’s watching, Andrew Lincoln has said conversations are happening about Rick Grimes possibly showing up somewhere before this franchise closes this particular chapter.
Daryl and Carol have been around since the beginning of this universe, and knowing there’s a finish line now changes how you’re going to watch every episode left.
If Day One was about setting the tone, Day Two was about delivering on it. This one was not because of any single trailer or announcement, but because of how many small, unscripted moments have stacked up already.
Saturday’s next, and if the last two days are any indication, it’s going to be the busiest one yet.
Leave a Reply