With arguably even more crowds in its second day, New York Comic Con saw a beefed-up presence from New York’s finest due to ex-Hamas leader Khaled Mashal’s call for a “day of jihad” today.
Although New York City Mayor Eric Adams tweeted, “There are currently no credible or specific threats against our city,” NYPD stuck to its promise to surge “resources to sensitive locations out of an abundance of caution and to ensure that all New Yorkers stay safe,” per a Friday statement to press.
TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media took extreme caution today, cancelling tonight’s Eli Roth-led panel for his horror movie Thanksgiving. While one source told us the last-minute cancellation was due to a “scheduling issue,” filmmaker Roth and the pic’s EP, Spyglass boss Gary Barber, signed Thursday’s Creative Community for Peace’s open letter, which called on the entertainment community to speak out forcefully against Hamas and to support Israel.
“This is not the right climate to bring a horror movie to a public convention,” one source opined to us about the pic’s pullout from NYCC.
Today’s force at NYCC included a line of six armed police officers with semi-automatic weapons stationed at the 11th Avenue entrance of the confab HQ Javits Center between 34th and 35th Streets — a sight not seen on Day 1 Thursday. The guards were in place this morning but had departed by early afternoon. Several NYPD vans, cars and vehicles continued to surround the convention center by afternoon.
Meanwhile, amid the masses, sheriffs took to inspecting the individual auditoriums on the fourth floor.
One attendee on the floor today called the mob scene “chaotic,” while another said Friday’s NYCC turnout “felt like I was walking into a crowded amusement park,” with throngs of folks crossing 11th Avenue and pouring into Javits. New York Comic Con pulls in a reported 200K attendees annually.
Adams urged earlier, “If New Yorkers see something, we ask that you say something.”