Consider this an innoculation

In the coming week or two there are going to be a gazillion blog posts and news stories about the movies that are being brought by their distributing studios to Comic-Con. Most of them will contain the words “awesome” or “buzz” or, quite possibly, both.

But as Brian Lowry at Variety states it’s important to remember that the audience at Comic-Con – and that includes the members of the press – is not always representative of the mainstream movie-going public.

Surrounded by ardent fans, it’s easy to get sucked into Comic-Con’s vortex of enthusiasm, forgetting that even with 120,000 people descending on the convention center, that’s still a very, very self-selected group. For starters, it takes true commitment for adults to squeeze into Klingon or Stormtrooper costumes in the late-summer heat, and nearly as much for those compelled to stand in line next to them.

Yet after a few days of immersion in the Comic-Con experience, this strange world begins to feel oddly normal. In such a boisterous environment one can readily succumb to the condition known as “Hall H Hysteria” –referring, of course, to the 6,500-seat mega-auditorium where the biggest movies (and now a few TV shows) come to bow before the perceived front lines of the pop-culture universe.

The people there are part of the niche that is going to bring these movies or TV shows or whatever the level of success they’ll eventually achieve. But while they may go ga-ga over something it can be a very different story for the general public. And the buzz that comes out of Comic-Con doesn’t always have the best legs.