By Piya Sinha-Roy

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – After smashing box office records this year, Wonder Woman received the loudest cheers among the DC superheroes gathered on Saturday at San Diego’s annual Comic-Con to present new footage and trailers for Warner Bros’ expanding comic book film franchise.

A teaser of Warner Bros’ upcoming superhero films shown to the 6,500 attendees at the panel gave a glimpse of “Wonder Woman II,” a presumed sequel to June’s “Wonder Woman” movie that is on track this weekend to become the second-highest grossing movie of 2017.

No further details were revealed about “Wonder Woman II,” but star Gal Gadot joined Ben Affleck (Batman), Ezra Miller (Flash), Ray Fisher (Cyborg) and Jason Momoa (Aquaman), to present the latest trailer for November’s “Justice League” movie, which will unite the DC superheroes.

Affleck said he was “the luckiest guy in the world” and “so thrilled” to play the caped crusader, dispelling trade publication The Hollywood Reporter’s report this week that his future as Batman was uncertain.

The latest trailer picks up after the death of Superman from last year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” and shows Batman and Wonder Woman joined by the Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman to fight supervillain Steppenwolf.

Wonder Woman says “They said age of heroes would never come again,” as Batman tells her, “it has to.”

“All of these characters are dealing with personal issues and they come together and are able to use those circumstances to save the world, which is beautiful,” Fisher said.

In his excitement after watching the new trailer, the muscle-bound Momoa threw his chair across the stage, breaking it and briefly sitting on the floor.

Momoa also debuted the first look at the standalone “Aquaman” movie, and revealed the aquatic superhero will be battling his brother, the supervillain Ocean Master, in the film due out next year.

The avid fan base at Comic-Con, a gathering of pop and nerd culture fans, were also shown footage of Warner Bros’ upcoming sci-fi films “Ready Player One” and “Blade Runner 2049.”

Veteran filmmaker Steven Spielberg is directing “Ready Player One,” out next year and adapted from the book of the same name, about a near-future dystopian America where people escape real life into a virtual reality world void of limits.

Spielberg said the film is a “flashback to a decade I was very involved in, the 1980s, and flash forward to a future waiting out there for us whether we like it or not.”

MARVEL BRINGS HAMMERLESS THOR, NEW KING BLACK PANTHER

Thor has lost his invincible hammer and Black Panther shoulders the responsibility of being a new king, in exclusive scenes shown from Disney’s Marvel studios’ upcoming superhero movies at San Diego’s Comic-Con.

One of the most high-profile draws of the annual convention for pop and nerd culture fans, Marvel’s star-studded panel session on Saturday kicked off with “Thor: Ragnarok,” due in theaters in November.

Director Taika Waititi joined stars Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston and Cate Blanchett to discuss how the Norse god has evolved in the film, specifically as he has lost his power-wielding hammer, is trapped on a planet named Sakaar and has to fight in a gladiator contest with the Hulk.

“I’ve played this character five times now … I got a bit bored with myself and wanted to make something different,” Hemsworth said.

Comedy weaves through a trailer that shows Thor meeting the Hulk and filling him in on his status, saying “I’m doing my own thing now, I’m not really hanging out with the Avengers anymore, it all got very corporate.”

As supervillain Hela (Blanchett) takes over Thor’s home planet of Asgard, he must recruit the help of the superheroes, including his mischievous brother Loki, to stop Hela and prevent Ragnarok – the end of the world.

Avid fans, many of whom lined up overnight to get into the 6,500-seat Hall H, gave a rousing standing ovation for the first footage from 2018’s “Black Panther,” in which Chadwick Boseman plays T’Challa, the new king of fictional African nation Wakanda, who is also a deadly superhero.

“T’Challa is someone who got his power from the people around him and his history,” director Ryan Coogler said. “History is something very important to me, my family and African culture.”

Scenes showed T’Challa, joined by his spy Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and warrior Okoyo (Danai Gurira), in slick, explosive fight scenes with a villain named Ulysses (Andy Serkis,) as well as T’Challa’s ambitious brother Erik (Michael B. Jordan).

Marvel announced that its upcoming female superhero standalone film “Captain Marvel” starring Brie Larson will take place in the 1990s, before the events of 2008’s “Iron Man” that set Marvel’s subsequent film franchise in motion. The villains will be the alien shapeshifters called the Skrulls.

It also revealed new additions to its 2018 “Ant-Man and the Wasp” film, including Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne and Laurence Fishburne as Dr. Bill Foster.