The film festivals may be where you launch the art house films, but if you’ve got a major blockbuster in the comic, horror or science fiction genre then there’s no other time of year quite like the San Diego Comic Con. Last year saw over 100,000 people cramming the expansive convention centre for the four-day event.

With a little over a week to go, the full schedule has been announced with this year’s various panels to include appearances and Q&As with the likes of Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Jason Statham, David Wenham, Rosario Dawson, Amber Tamblyn, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Eva Mendes, Kristen Bell, Ali Larter, Anna Sophia Robb, Nick Frost, David Arquette and The Wayans Brothers.

Joining them will be directing and producing luminaries such as Sam Raimi, Alfonso Cuarón, Bryan Singer, Kevin Smith, Richard Kelly, Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo del Toro, Stephen Hopkins, Jon Favreau, Edgar Wright, David Goyer, James L. Brooks, Mark Steven Johnson, Zach Snyder, Joel Silver and Stan Winston.

As always there’s plenty of sneak peek footage, every year a filmmaker brings along a world first look at footage from films in production with last year both "Superman Returns" and "King Kong" bringing the house down. This year it’s expected a scene from "Spider-Man 3" will be the most talked about. With both previous film’s Sam Raimi was in attendance at a panel which showed off two key scenes (the lab where Peter gets bitten in the first film, and the Doc Ock operating room gone crazy scene from the second) which were edited and used completed visual effects. Raimi is back this year and it’s expected we’ll see a similar deal here, along with the unveiling of new artwork showing off the film’s villains.

Potential footage debuts from the likes of "300", "Grind House" and possibly "Transformers" will draw much talk as well. Amongst the films getting panels or being shown footage from are: 300, The Ant Bully, The Children of Men, Crank, DOA: Dead or Alive, Fantastic Four 2, Flyboys, Ghost Rider, Grind House, Happy Feet, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Iron Man, Open Season, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Reaping, Saw III, Skinwalkers, Snakes on a Plane, Southland Tales, Spider-Man 3, Stardust, Surf’s Up, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Transformers & The Wicker Man.

Friday - Room 6CDEF

12:30pm: NBC’s "Heroes" Pilot Screening

3pm: Southland Tales

4pm: DOA: Dead or Alive

6pm: Power of the Dark Crystal