Lucca Comics and Games turns 60 with record studio backing
Studios and streamers have put more money into this year's Lucca Comics and Games than into any previous edition, director Emanuele Vietina told Variety. The 60th edition runs Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 in Lucca, Tuscany, under the theme "Legacy". The walled-city festival draws more than 200,000 fans per day for a mix of comics, games, film and television.
Television takes centre stage. Disney will offer a sneak peek of Season 3 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the fantasy adventure series, with talent in attendance. Warner Bros. will bring a Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone immersive pavilion, a walk-through installation, ahead of the new HBO series. Percy Jackson, Harry Potter and Dexter will each have dedicated experience spaces where fans can step inside the worlds of the shows.
Cinema gets an early window too. Lucca will hold a special fan screening of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, based on Suzanne Collins's 2025 novel and a prequel in the Hunger Games film series. Aardman Animations founder Peter Lord and director Peter Walker will attend for the Italian premiere of Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, the latest outing for the woolly stop-motion character. Stop-motion is animation made by moving models a fraction at a time and filming each step.
Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu will meet fans and discuss his work on Look Back, an adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto's manga, Japanese comics, about two young artists. It is an unusual festival appearance for a director known for quiet family dramas. His slot reflects the pull manga and anime now have with mainstream screen audiences.
The anniversary looks back as well as forward. Lucca will stage "Lucca Legacy: A Comics and Games Story", an exhibition in the 14th-century Palazzo Guinigi tracing six decades of the event. Artist Claudio Castellini created the 60th anniversary poster, as reported by Bleeding Cool. The Lucca Comics Awards grew from the Yellow Kid and Gran Guinigi prizes given in the city since 1966, according to the festival's archive. The 2026 dates run Wednesday, Oct. 28 through Sunday, Nov. 1.
Lucca has long served as a launch pad. The 2019 edition offered early looks at Netflix's fantasy series The Witcher and the Keanu Reeves video game Cyberpunk 2077, as reported by Variety.
What makes this stand out is the blend. Cosplayers, fans dressed as characters, fill medieval streets while global brands test what audiences want next. Sixty years on, the formula still holds.
