People wait in line for hours, even days, to get inside Hall H, San Diego Comic-Con’s Mecca of giant panels and exclusive video presentations. Last year, I walked the entire line the night before a big day of events; it stretched almost a mile and a half along the San Diego waterfront in three different sections.

Clearly, getting inside that hall is a big deal. That’s because it’s the place studios and filmmakers premiere footage from their upcoming movies and TV shows and whatnot. And because it’s the place to premiere this exclusive content, and because people wait outside for days to get in, the convention and the studios have a vested interest in keeping most of that footage in the room. If anyone can watch those trailers and exclusives, why wait overnight? Why take a trip to San Diego at all? This is why, even in this age of cell phone video and online streaming, a lot of SDCC exclusives never appear online, or appear online in modified forms, or appear online only in poorly shot videos made by conventioneers.

That last element may change at this year’s Comic-Con though, at least according to director James Gunn, who’ll be attending San Diego this year in support of Marvel Studios and his upcoming movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. In response to a comment on Facebook about whether Comic-Con attendees will get a glimpse of new footage from the Guardians sequel, Gunn had this to say:

 

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Because I’m an idiot, I’m not sure what technology that might be, but if you keep up with the latest tech news there are a few possibilities, like Apple’s new patent that would allow the company to disable cameras on their phones remotely. It could also be one of the Infinity Stones. Those things are very powerful. I imagine they could easily deactivate a cell phone.

Whenever I’ve attended Comic-Con and Hall H, the filmmakers there always ask, with great politeness, that people don’t film the footage, and invariably people do it anyway. We’ll see whether this new secret technology (whether it is of terrestrial origin or otherwise) makes a difference at this year’s convention in just a couple weeks.

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