If you could wish for any TV series to do an Abbott Elementary crossover, what would it be?

Sorry kids (and teachers—oh my stars, especially teachers), but it’s almost back to school time. Fortunately, for us all, that also means back to a very specific school: Abbott Elementary.

Quinta Brunson’s multiple-Emmy winning series that is “The Office but school” returns for its 4th season on Wednesday, October 9th on ABC. And it’s apparently bringing another show along with it. 

Abbott Elementary crossover episode announced

During Abbott’s SDCC panel appearance this past weekend, Brunson teased a crossover with another show for season 4.

“We will be doing an interesting crossover this season,” she said, “I’m not gonna tell you with who or with what or where or when or how. But just know, it’s very exciting and I think it will change television as we know it.”

Social media weighs in with crossover possibilities

Naturally, this tease had the internet’s wheels spinning, with possible shows being speculated on and, as a result, some immensely fun sounding pairings that I now want to all occur. 

The most likely candidates here are shows already owned by Disney/20th/Hulu, so the speculators focusing on those shows are likely warmer. 

Please let it be the last one. Oh please give us Frank Reynolds, substitute teacher. Or the gang giving an assembly about bullying. I don’t ask for much here. Either way, we’ll find out soon enough once the new season of Abbot Elementary starts in October.

Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post Quinta Brunson announces ‘Abbott Elementary’ crossover episode at Comic-Con, but which TV show will it be with? appeared first on The Daily Dot.

San Diego Comic-Con is set to return this November, ending a yearlong hiatus due to the pandemic. But judging by responses on social media—and a damning new article in the Hollywood Reporter—the convention may struggle to attract desirable guests.

Fan conventions are, at the best of times, giant Petri dishes for infectious diseases. People routinely return from events like SDCC with "con crud," getting sick from spending a week crammed into overcrowded, poorly ventilated halls with thousands of other fans. So when SDCC's organizers announced that the convention would return from Nov. 26-28 this year—four months after its typical July schedule—the response was not exactly positive.

Sure, most people in the United States will hopefully have access to vaccines by then. But what about people traveling from overseas? And even if you are vaccinated, do you really want to spend Thanksgiving at Comic-Con, rather than with your family?

According to THR, the convention is already attracting backlash from Hollywood reps, with studios and PR sources saying that A-list guests just won't want to attend. An anonymous PR rep "with clients who have appeared in Hall H panels" (in other words, headline SDCC talent) said that their clients are "refusing" to attend. Other studio reps pointed out that actors and filmmakers also have families and may prioritize Thanksgiving over traveling to San Diego to promote a project.

Apparently, SDCC's organizers didn't contact any of the major movie studios before making the announcement. So potential guests are now scrambling to decide whether they want to attend the convention in November. For a lot of people, the answer is obviously no. In addition to concerns about vaccination, quarantining, and herd immunity, traveling will be even more expensive and complicated during Thanksgiving weekend.

The 2020-2021 media calendar also cast doubts on whether SDCC is "necessary" in the first place. Comic-Con is a massive brand, and its biggest attractions are marketing events for blockbuster movies and TV shows. These rely on good relationships with Hollywood studios, and some of those studios have proven that they don't need SDCC to generate publicity. Star Wars and the MCU are doing just fine on their own, for example.

Comic-Con's 2021 relaunch is probably more about the convention's own business problems than anything else, because SDCC hasn't made any money in over a year. This Thanksgiving weekend announcement looks like a last-ditch effort to escape dire financial straits—and it may not be a successful one.

H/T Hollywood Reporter

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post San Diego Comic-Con slammed for scheduling 2021 convention over Thanksgiving weekend appeared first on The Daily Dot.

Now an online-only event thanks to Covid-19, this year's San Diego Comic-Con is in full swing. Several of the biggest geek-culture franchises aren't participating this year, including Marvel, Star Wars and the DCEU, but there's still plenty going on. Here are some of the most exciting trailers released so far, along with some cool new announcements for shows like His Dark Materials and Star Trek!

Bill & Ted Face the Music

The long-awaited Bill & Ted threequel comes out in September, and the new trailer looks most excellent, dude. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are joining the film's director and writer for a YouTube panel on Saturday, so you've got that to look forward to as well.

Truth Seekers

This new ghost-hunting sitcom is the latest project from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, reuniting after their starring roles in films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

His Dark Materials

Season 2 of HBO's His Dark Materials is on the way, delving into the story of The Subtle Knife. With input from Philip Pullman, the show is continuing to expand on the world of the books, including a bigger role for Will's father John Parry. Phoebe Waller-Bridge joins the cast as the voice of John Parry's daemon - a fun little reunion, since he's played by her Fleabag co-star Andrew Scott. Unfortunately covid-19 quashed the show's plans for a standalone episode focusing on James McAvoy's Lord Asriel, but otherwise season 2 was completed on time, and the trailer looks very cool.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

The Star Trek franchise continues to expand, including a kid-friendly cartoon series whose title was announced at Thursday's panel: Star Trek: Prodigy on Nickelodeon next year. But before that we have the adult animated show Star Trek: Lower Decks in August, and there's a new teaser for that. No new material from Discovery, unfortunately!

We've got plenty more to look forward to throughout Friday and Saturday, including a Charlize Theron Q&A, a Constantine reunion with Keanu Reeves (could that long-rumored sequel be announced?) and Guillermo del Toro discussing the new horror movie Antlers, which he produced with director Scott Cooper.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post All the best trailers from San Diego Comic-Con (so far) appeared first on The Daily Dot.

The Star Trek Universe kicked off San Diego Comic-Con at Home with a look back at two flagship series and a preview of what’s to come.

Moderated by Deadline senior editor Dominic Patten, the Star Trek Universe panel didn’t go smoothly. The panel was temporarily removed from YouTube due to a copyright complaint from CBS, a similar issue happened during Cartoon Network’s panel. But once the copyright issues were resolved, fans were treated to the cast of three Star Trek TV shows—Discovery, Picard, and the upcoming animated series Lower Decks—as they offered teases for what was to come—especially from the recently announced Strange New World, which would star Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck.

“The [writers’] room has started,” executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who noted that active discussions around Strange New World were taking place around last year’s SDCC. “There are 10 stories broken, which is very exciting, and they’re just sort of the beginning, but it was one of those shows that I think everyone came in with such enthusiasm and so much love.”

Lower Decks, which is set to premiere on CBS All Access on Aug. 6, was the only series to debut any new footage, which comes from the first episode. Following members of the Starfleet crew who we don’t often get to see on a Star Trek show, the scene involves U.S.S. Cerritos crew members Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome). According to Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites), the show takes place in the year 2380, placing it after Star Trek: Nemesis but well before Picard in the Star Trek timeline.

“We tried to fit it into canon so it doesn’t break anything, but we tried to do something new with it at the same time,” McMahan explained. “We tried to keep it exciting, but we also tried to keep all the ethical sci-fi stuff that makes Star Trek Star Trek without breaking it. And I think we’ve come up with something that a lot of people are going to enjoy.”

The Discovery panel involved part of a virtual table read of the show’s season 2 finale—the entire table read will be available to watch on July 24—while both Discovery and Picard featured Q&As with the show’s cast and crew.

But amid the teases and behind-the-scenes glimpses, several participants stressed the importance of the messages Star Trek has always relayed, especially in the wake of recent events.

“I think what’s great when you’re working on genre is you often get to say things about current events and mask them so they don’t feel like medicine or that you’re being taught something,” executive producer Heather Kadin said. “And I think in the case of Star Trek, thematically, it’s just baked into what Star Trek is about a better hope, about equality, gender equality, racial equality, sexual equality. I mean, it’s what it is.”

You can watch the Star Trek Universe virtual panel in its entirety below.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post ‘Star Trek’ teases the future at virtual San Diego Comic-Con appeared first on The Daily Dot.

San Diego Comic-Con, one of the biggest fan conventions in the world, has been canceled due to concern over the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s the first time in the convention’s 50-year history that SDCC—which brings around 135,000 attendees to the San Diego Convention Center over a five-day period—isn’t being held. Comic-Con, the organization behind SDCC and WonderCon (which would’ve taken place April 10-12), already canceled the latter convention last month. Renovations on Balboa Park’s Federal Building for the Comic-Con Museum have also delayed the museum’s planned summer 2021 opening.

The organizers cited recent statements from California Governor Gavin Newsom and assessments of the situation as having led to the decision to cancel.  

“Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures and while we are saddened to take this action, we know it is the right decision,” Comic-Con spokesperson David Glanzer said in a statement. “We eagerly look forward to the time when we can all meet again and share in the community we all love and enjoy.”

Earlier this week, Glanzer told the San Diego Union-Tribune that there may be an online component to SDCC, but details about that potential online component have yet to be released; the press release sent out on Friday also doesn’t touch on the Eisner Awards, which are typically held during SDCC.

Anyone with an SDCC 2020 badge—both regular badge holders and exhibitors—can either request a refund or transfer their badges to SDCC 2021, which will be held July 22-25, 2021. Hotel room reservations made through onPeak (the SDCC hotel affiliate) will also be canceled and deposits refunded.

The decision to cancel SDCC arrives several months before SDCC’s scheduled dates, and Comic-Con cited concerns about the financial cost and potential loss of income for attendees and exhibitors as to why it had hoped to delay the cancellation of SDCC.

But the cancellation also arrived after Comic-Con released an update at the beginning of April voicing hope that SDCC 2020 would happen, a statement that was widely derided at the time for the unnecessary risk of further spreading COVID-19 by allowing more than 135,000 people gather in a vastly crowded convention center for five days. And that’s assuming that studios, networks, and publishers whose products make up part of SDCC’s programming, even felt safe enough to send their employees and talent to SDCC to participate.

We’re several months away from July, but as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in the U.S., canceling SDCC became an inevitability.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post San Diego Comic-Con got canceled due to the coronavirus appeared first on The Daily Dot.

San Diego Comic-Con still hasn't been officially canceled, but it looks like things are moving in that direction.

SDCC spokesperson David Glanzer told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the convention organizers were considering an "online component" if they have to cancel this year. He explained: “We do not want to disappoint the people who have saved, planned, and are looking forward to the show this summer, but the primary concern, what is chief among all our concerns, is the health and safety of not only our attendees, but the public as well.”

The Union-Tribune report highlights the complicated nature of calling off such a big event, including the cancelation of 220,000 hotel room nights. Earlier this month, 50+ hotels were contacted about the necessity of refunding customers if SDCC does get canceled. The head of the San Diego Tourism Authority said that Comic-Con was "evaluating any financial liability" around cancelation, which sounds like the same problem many other conventions and festivals have faced this year: figuring out a way to cancel and get insurance payouts without going bankrupt. Ticket-holders are also wondering about refunds or the possibility of getting priority access to next year's event.

SDCC is meant to take place in late July, and as of April 1st, the convention organizers were still publicly planning to move forward as normal. This announcement was met with disbelief because even in two or three months, it probably won't be safe or prudent to hold a crowded event with over 130,000 international attendees.

These new updates suggest that SDCC is moving toward some kind of cancelation or postponement, potentially with some events streaming online. There's already precedent for this with other conventions including WonderCon this weekend (which is organized by the same body as SDCC), and Worldcon later this year, which is planning a full program of livestreamed panels. Zoom, Twitch, and YouTube are the name of the game for conventions in 2020.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post San Diego Comic-Con may become an online convention appeared first on The Daily Dot.

For the next couple of months, everyone is meant to avoid large crowds of people. Theme parks are closing left and right, and the same goes for fan conventions. So, it was a real surprise to see San Diego Comic-Con prevaricate about canceling this year's event. SDCC's official Twitter account announced this week that the organizers are monitoring "the situation" with local authorities, and "No one is as hopeful as we are that we will be able to celebrate #SDCC2020 together come July."

Considering the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, this statement sounds downright delusional. SDCC takes place in late July, and while the outbreak is expected to have passed its peak by then, that doesn't mean it will be "over." It certainly won't be a good idea to attend a massive convention with guests flying in from around the world. Regular convention-goers will tell you that these events are already hotbeds for viral illnesses, hence the term "con crud," the nickname for colds and flus that people catch at crowded convention centers.

Boasting about 130,000 attendees each year, SDCC is one of the biggest conventions in the world. It's also a key event in the promotional calendar for movie studios and geek culture in general, overflowing with celebrity guests and merchandise. In other words, canceling will be a complicated financial endeavour.

It's entirely possible that SDCC is avoiding cancelation for insurance reasons, which was why SXSW held off until the last moment. These events often stand to lose more money if they pull the plug themselves, as opposed to canceling because they're forced to do so by the government. But for the moment, that's just speculation. According to Comic-Con's public statement this week, the organizers are still hoping to go ahead with the convention.

If SDCC does refuse to cancel outright, it can't possibly go ahead in its usual format. In the same way that companies like Amazon preemptively withdrew from SXSW, some guests are sure to cancel their appearances for safety reasons, or because it would be bad publicity. No one wants to become a deadly disease vector while promoting their new TV show. Not to mention the fact that a lot of the things that SDCC usually promotes... are also canceled. Aside from the obvious dangers of cramming thousands of people into Hall H, it would be pretty weird to host a Marvel Studios panel where all the movies are delayed. Put simply, SDCC cannot happen. The organizers just haven't pulled the trigger yet.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post Why isn’t San Diego Comic-Con canceled yet? appeared first on The Daily Dot.

We should have seen this coming, but Mahershala Ali's Blade movie won't be part of Marvel's Phase 4.

The Blade reboot is already an unusual move for Marvel Studios, announcing the lead actor before a director or writer is in place. Usually, Marvel develops a script and/or hires a director before starting the casting process, but Ali totally makes sense as an exception. After winning his second Oscar for Green Book, Ali arranged a meeting with producer Kevin Feige and pitched the idea of playing Blade. Feige, who isn't an idiot, quickly accepted.

In an interview with MTV News at San Diego Comic-Con, Feige said that Phase 5 is already mapped out, but they decided to only announce Phase 4 titles for now. That's 11 projects over two years, including the new live-action Disney+ shows, Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder.

https://twitter.com/MTVNEWS/status/1152991879690182656

Blade is the first officially announced movie of Phase 5, but like the rest of Phase 5, it doesn't have a release date yet. Those films will come out in 2022 and 2023 when we can also expect sequels for Black Panther, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Man. Plus, most likely, the new Avengers lineup.

This means Ali's Blade is at least three years away, maybe four. But after Marvel's long habit of announcing films years in advance, fans should be used to this kind of tantalizing wait.

READ MORE:

• The MCU’s Phase 4 is all about Marvel getting weird
• Marvel unveiled its Phase 4 plans at San Diego Comic-Con
• The best order to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Want more reviews and interviews from Gavia Baker-Whitelaw? Sign up here to receive her biweekly geek culture newsletter.

Got five minutes? We’d love to hear from you. Help shape our journalism and be entered to win an Amazon gift card by filling out our 2019 reader survey.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post Mahershala Ali’s ‘Blade’ movie won’t arrive until Phase 5 of the MCU appeared first on The Daily Dot.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is one of several new Star Trek TV shows in the works at CBS All Access, and it's the first cartoon since the original Animated Series in the 1970s. Created by Mike McMahon (Rick and Morty), Lower Decks is riding the wave of popularity for adult animation, focusing on "the support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships."

Following San Diego Comic-Con 2019, we now have a much better idea of what that will look like. Along with Star Trek: Picard and Discovery, Lower Decks is part of a new raft of spinoffs masterminded by producer Alex Kurtzman, with at least one other animated show in the works.

Here's what we know about Star Trek: Lower Decks so far.

Star Trek: Lower Decks release date

Lower Decks will come out in 2020, probably after the live-action Picard premieres in the spring. It will air on CBS All Access in the U.S., with overseas access yet to be determined. A second season has already been confirmed.

Star Trek: Lower Decks cast

The main voice cast consists of Tawney Newsome, Jack Quaid, Eugene Cordero, Noël Wells, Dawnn Lewis, Fred Tatasciore, Jerry O'Connell, and Gillian Vigman. They're all playing new Star Trek characters, with character designs released at Comic-Con.

Set after Star Trek: Nemesis, Lower Decks will show a more everyday, less heroic side of the Star Trek universe. During the show's Comic-Con panel, the creators were careful to point out that Lower Decks isn't a parody and will still maintain the tone and ethos of Star Trek, even if the characters are less impressive than the crew of a flagship like the Enterprise.

The cast includes new Starfleet recruits and characters who aren't very good at their jobs, in a ship that does "support work" for the rest of the fleet. Thanks to the freedom of animation over live-action prosthetics, there will be more non-human characters among the cast.

Star Trek: Lower Decks creative team

Showrunner Mike McMahon was a writer and producer on Rick and Morty, and this show will take inspiration from its sense of humor. The other writers and directors haven't been announced yet, but the show went into production in February 2019.

Star Trek: Lower Decks trailer

The trailer isn't out yet, but we can probably expect it in late 2019.

READ MORE:

• 'Star Trek: Discovery' sets up a shocking new direction for season 3
• 'Star Trek's Jonathan Frakes calls out your lies with this new meme
• 'Star Trek Discovery' designer on Vulcan style, that unisex Starfleet dress, and Yeezys

Want more reviews and interviews from Gavia Baker-Whitelaw? Sign up here to receive her biweekly geek culture newsletter.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post Everything we know about ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks,’ the new animated show appeared first on The Daily Dot.

This weekend saw Marvel unveil Phase 4 of the MCU at San Diego Comic-Con, announcing a ton of exciting casting choices for films including The Eternals, Blade, and Shang-Chi. But what else can we glean from those revelations? For one thing, Phase 4 is going to be a lot weirder and more magical than the early years of the Marvel franchise.

Marvel's first three phases revolved around the Avengers as a traditional superhero team, mostly rooted in reality, and with strong U.S. military ties for most of the lead heroes. Some movies featured magic (Doctor Strange, Thor) and some were quirkier than your average superhero adventure (Guardians of the Galaxy), but they generally followed a similar formula, and outright magic was a small part of the MCU. Judging by the announcements we saw at Comic-Con, Marvel is moving on from those military/law enforcement stories, and is now comfortable enough to get weird.

With Captain Marvel, Guardians, and Black Panther sequels further off in the future, most of Phase 4's headline movies look more fantastical and offbeat than the Infinity War/Endgame era. Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier are the only holdovers from the Iron Man/Captain America phase of military heroes, while almost everything else is supernatural. Thor: Love and Thunder expands on Marvel's first original fantasy franchise. A pair of TV shows will star the magical Loki and Scarlet Witch. A star-studded What If  animated movie will echo the classic Marvel comics exploring wacky alternate-universe scenarios. Mahershala Ali's Blade will introduce vampires to the MCU. Eternals features a cast of quasi-immortal mythic alien heroes. And finally Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (a title that comes straight from the psychedelic 1970s heyday of the comics) promises to be the franchise's first horror movie. Meanwhile Shang-Chi may not be supernatural, but it's Marvel's first martial arts film, putting it in a fresh subgenre compared to other origin stories.

With Endgame out of the way, it honestly feels like the pressure's off. Knowing the audience is here to stay, the franchise can shift into more obscure and less "realistic" areas of the comics. There's an overall sense of greater creative freedom, and along with more diverse casting choices, Marvel has hired (and rehired) some very interesting directors.

Taika Waititi is obviously the biggest name here, returning triumphantly to the Thor franchise and doing something we honestly thought was impossible: persuading Natalie Portman to come back. Thor: Love and Thunder will feature Portman as female Thor, and make Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) the MCU's first openly queer hero. Then we have two acclaimed indie directors on Eternals and Shang-Chi: Chloé Zhao (The Rider) and Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term Twelve). The Doctor Strange announcement also suggests that Scott Derrickson will get more creative control this time around, playing to his strengths as a horror director, which didn't really come through before.

Magic existed in the MCU since day 1, but it was always portrayed as the exception, not the norm. Characters like Iron Man and Captain America lived in a logical, scientific world much like our own, with characters like Loki as a disruptive outside influence. Phase 4 is clearly going to change that. Between Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch, we're moving into an era of witchcraft and wizardry. With Blade, we have a franchise that never would have appeared in Marvel's early years, because it requires the MCU to be infested with vampires. As for The Eternals, well... who knows what the Eternals might bring?

READ MORE:

• Your complete guide to the Marvel Cinematic Universe
• Marvel unveiled its Phase 4 plans at San Diego Comic-Con
• Marvel’s ‘The Eternals’ could be the weirdest movie in the MCU

Want more reviews and interviews from Gavia Baker-Whitelaw? Sign up here to receive her biweekly geek culture newsletter.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post The MCU’s Phase 4 is all about Marvel getting weird appeared first on The Daily Dot.