Fan Expo Canada drew thousands of costumed fans this year to downtown Toronto over the past weekend to check out the activities, memorabilia, celebrity panels and more. Fan Expo strives to provide the very best pop culture to the fans and included some bigger booths and bigger celebrities than ever this year.
Streamers such as Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney had incredible interactive booths. Paramount+ introduced a 4-D experience in which guests could experience a ride up to the iconic Paramount mountain with cameos from various characters from their TV shows and movies. Guests were warned they would get wet and they weren’t kidding! Disney had a throwback display on the outside and a visit the world of Percy Jackson and the Olympians inside. Click here to watch our interview with the stars.
Netflix promoted their popular show Wednesday, which will debut the second part of Season 2 on September 2, 2025. Their interactive display, "Alone Zone" was perfect for fans who loathe people and just want to be alone. Joining in promoting the second part of the second season in a "dreadful" panel were Joy Sunday (Bianca Barclay), Georgie Farmer (Ajax Petropolus) and Isaac Ordonez (Pugsley Addams), who shared secrets about the new season and what was to come.
Following the success of the films Code 8 and Code 8 Part II, actor Robbie Amell, writer Chris Pare and director Jeff Chan announced that the films are expanding to a graphic novel called Code 8: Tales of Lincoln City, Vol. 1. Fans can go to the Indiegogo Campaign Link (indiegogo.com) and have exclusive perks to this new addition to the franchise.
"An Evening with Marty and Doc" panel celebrated the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future. In attendance were writer/producer Bob Gale, Mary Steenburgen (Back to the Future: Part III), Christopher Lloyd and a rare appearance by Michael J. Fox. They all spoke fondly about their time on the various Back to the Future films. When asked if they would prefer the DeLorean or the Train as the time machine, everyone picked the DeLorean -- except for Steenburgen -- adding that her father was a conductor and felt she had to pick the train. Fox advised that his new memoir, Future Boy, will be coming out in the fall. He thanked the fans for loving and supporting the movie, which contributed to giving him such a wonderful life. There was also a performance by Lucas Hallauer (seen below), who is currently playing Marty McFly on tour in Back To The Future: The Musical.
Saturday night featured "Ewan McGregor Live," in which the Scottish actor spoke about his time on his documentary, Long Way Down, and his movies, including Trainspotting and the Star Wars series. He revealed that the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was originally supposed to center around Obi-Wan and Luke, but they made the switch from Luke to Leia. Ewan spoke about how hard the fight scenes were to film and train for and said that it was impossible not to make the lightsaber sounds during filming of the fighting scenes.
Mason Thames made his first appearance at Fan Expo and told the audience that he grew up on the How to Train Your Dragon movies, and even dressed up as Hiccup as a child. When he put on the outfit for Hiccup for the live action movie, he admitted that he and his mother cried when he looked in the mirror for the first time. He spoke about working with Ethan Hawke on the upcoming movie, Black Phone 2, and admitted that although Hawke was terrifying in the role, he was an amazing person to work with.
It was a weekend of celebrating Superman as the cast of Smallville -- which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year -- reunited for a panel to talk about their time on the show. Tom Welling joined the Superman Unite panel, which also featured Brandon Routh, George Newbern and Tyler Hoechlin, who also spoke about their experiences in playing Superman in the different stages of the character’s life.
The last panel of the day was Hailee Steinfeld, who is known for the voice of Vi in the popular series Arcane and Hawkeye and movies such as True Grit, Sinners, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Bumblebee. She spoke about the difference between acting and voice acting and said she underestimated how much harder voice acting is. She revealed that the piece of advice her True Grit co-stars gave her when she was a child actor was: "Do not take life seriously and always have fun." She said this advice helped shape her into the person she is today. She was grateful for all the fans who cosplayed as characters that she either played or was the voice actor for and said that seeing this made her feel that what she does is worth it.
Other notable celebrities who attended were John Boyega, Peggy the Dog (Deadpool & Wolverine), William Shatner, Dafne Keen (Logan), and Ron Perlman, along with many others.
Fans enjoyed four days filled with fun, including meeting up with friends, shopping for merch to add to their collections or just meeting up with cosplayers. Many memories were made, and excitement is already buzzing for next year. ~Photos and articles by Joanne Chu-Fook