Earlier this month, I went to New York Comic-Con. As a long-time convention attendee, this one has always been high on my bucket list, and I'm pleased to report it did not disappoint!
New York Comic-Con has the advantage of being, well, in New York City. So much cool stuff happens in New York, including a lot of advertising and promotion for entertainment. This means that the calibre of projects and guests attending New York Comic-Con was high.
As a first-time NYCC attendee, I'm not sure how 2025 compares to previous years at the convention. But as someone who has attended San Diego Comic-Con a bunch of times, my bar was high, and I felt that NYCC was equal to, if not better, in many ways.
I walked out of New York Comic-Con way more excited about multiple upcoming releases than I was before, which I feel is the mark of a good promotion at NYCC. Similar to my SDCC ranking from earlier in the year, I thought I would go ahead and list some of the previews I saw of upcoming series and shows and share why I am itching to see them.
The Running Man
I'll admit The Running Man was flying way under my radar, despite it being something insanely in my wheelhouse. The dystopian game show setting that is part Survivor, part The Amazing Race, and dialled up to the extreme (murder), on paper, already promises to scratch that Hunger Games part of my brain. But sitting in on The Running Man panel and seeing firsthand some scenes from the film really hooked me in.
The Running Man is based on a Stephen King novel, and this is not the first time it's been a movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the 1987 version, which has gone on to become a cult classic.
With this new iteration, we have Edgar Wright in the director's chair, Glen Powell as the running man, Ben Richards, and Lee Pace as one of the deadly hunters tasked with finding and killing him. Like I said, it's hard to go wrong with this premise when I'm already automatically bought in, but I have been burned before (see 2014's Turkey Shoot), so I had my reservations.
The handful of clips we were shown gave us a first look at the opening of the Running Man competition, in which Colman Domingo gives the most charismatic performance as the competition host, Bobby Thompson, and a tense chase scene of Ben trying to escape the hunters in an apartment building.
Any of this could easily have fallen flat, but I'll give it to Edgar Wright's energetic directing; the movie just has style. Within one hour, I was turned from someone with a passing knowledge of The Running Man to someone who will be there on day one.
IT: Welcome to Derry
After IT: Chapter Two, the book seemed to be closed on the dancing clown saga. That is until the same creatives got together and decided, what if we went backwards through Pennywise's killing cycles instead? The result is IT: Welcome to Derry, a new TV series charting the murderous active periods of the strange entity known as “it”, based on (yet again) a Stephen King novel.
It: Welcome to Derry features a whole new cast of characters, this time turning the attention on both adults and children living in Derry in 1962. From the footage I saw at the panel, this shift to TV hasn't resulted in any dialling down on the scares. The nightmare sequences are as gruesome and creative as ever, and the mythology around Pennywise and its origins is even more compelling. Definitely one to watch out for this Halloween.
The Mighty Nein
As a Critical Role fan, I was already bought in to The Mighty Nein, the group's newest animated show on Prime Video, which covers their second Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Where the first campaign was a classic hero's quest through the lands of Exandria, the Mighty Nein are a more unlikely group of heroes, kind of like the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The NYCC panel proved this will be a worthy successor to The Legend of Vox Machina, with The Mighty Nein trying to go even bigger than the first CR series. The show has significantly more guest stars, including Anjelica Huston and Lucy Liu (both insane gets), and the episodes will be roughly double the length. Let's. Go.
Mortal Kombat II
I'll admit my expectations for this film were on the floor, so for the Mortal Kombat II panel to turn me from disinterested into optimistic is a big feat. Based on the classic arcade fighter game, Mortal Kombat II continues the story from the first movie, but this time takes things to the actual tournament.
The most exciting new addition is Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, an actor-turned-unexpected-fighter, whose fight sequence, which we were shown during the panel, was actually very entertaining and had a lot of humor and flair.
I had my apprehensions about this one, but with the studio seemingly having enough confidence to delay the film eight months to a Summer 2026 slot, I feel a lot more optimistic about Mortal Kombat II.
The Beauty
Love him or hate him, Ryan Murphy is one of the most prolific creators working in TV, and I'm always intrigued to see what he's up to, particularly when it's not another American Horror Story or Monster. That new thing is The Beauty, a sci-fi crime mystery about a futuristic drug that makes people stunningly beautiful, only to eventually kill them.
The cast for the series is, as per usual for a Ryan Murphy show, stacked with stars, including Evan Peters, Rebecca Hall, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, and Ashton Kutcher. We've seen Murphy take on YA, horror, crime, and drama, but I'm genuinely interested to see what he does with a sci-fi like The Beauty. Murphy touted this as a bit of a return to his Nip/Tuck roots, and the clips played out like a futuristic global thriller with elements of Hannibal-type murders.
The Copenhagen Test
Another upcoming show I did not know of until New York Comic-Con is The Copenhagen Test. The series is a spy thriller starring Marvel's Simu Liu as an intelligence agent whose eyes and ears are literally hacked and must play his part to appease the hackers, whilst also proving his allegiance to his agency.
It's a fun concept, and the trailer they showed looked very promising. I definitely have my eye on this one.
Five Nights at Freddy's 2
I'll admit that the panel for Five Nights at Freddy's 2 at SDCC earlier this year did not move the needle for me, but it seems Blumhouse was saving all its juice for New York Comic-Con.
The FNAF 2 promotion (which was a part of a broader Blumfest panel) included full-scale animatronics walking through the crowd, free t-shirts, a surprise Matthew Lillard appearance, and the announcement of some very unexpected new voice actors in the sequel, including MatPat, Kellen Goff, and… Megan Fox??? I'll be watching it purely for her now.
If New York Comic-Con proved anything to me (apart from I want to come back next year) it's that we are in for a treat with new movies and series for the rest of the year. Let me know if any of these new films/shows are making it to your watch list!
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