Lucca Comics Turns 60 With Kore-eda, Percy Jackson and Record Studio Cash

Lucca Comics and Games will mark its 60th edition on Oct. 28–Nov. 1, drawing more than 200,000 fans a day inside the medieval walls of the Tuscan town. Director Emanuele Vietina calls this year's theme "Legacy," and he has built the lineup to prove it.

The anniversary edition spans film, television, animation, literature and video games, with Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu traveling to Lucca to meet fans and discuss his adaptation of Fujimoto Tatsuki's manga "Look Back." Vietina described the guest list and programming to Variety as a single coherent project. "It's all part of a specific vision," he said.

What does the 60th edition include?

The program, announced in advance, carries several headline names:

• A sneak peek of Season 3 of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians," with talent in attendance.
• Aardman Animations founder Peter Lord and director Matthew Walker presenting the Italian premiere of "Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom." Lord will be honored on the festival's "Walk of Fame."
• A special fan screening of "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping," based on Suzanne Collins' 2025 novel.
• An immersive Warner Bros. pavilion devoted to "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," timed ahead of the new HBO series.

The 14th-century Palazzo Guinigi will host "Lucca Legacy: A Comics and Games Story," an exhibition drawn from the festival's archives. Vietina said it will "tell a seminal story that was made by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Lee Falk and all the great American artists comics that found a home in Lucca in the 70s."

How does 'Legacy' frame the programming?

Vietina tied the theme to the festival's own history and to what he calls contemporary mythology. "Percy Jackson," he argued, shows how author Rick Riordan updates classical material for young readers.

"We often talk about 'contemporary mythology,'" Vietina said. "With Percy Jackson, which features Olympus and the Olympian gods, he revitalizes the great heritage of classical Greco-Roman culture, making it accessible to young people today."

An event like Lucca, he added, "deals with contemporary mythologies, yet it remains firmly anchored in the mythology of the past." He also noted the festival's singular status: the oldest comics convention in existence, and the only one with a formal red carpet in front of an opera house dating to the turn of the 20th century.

With Riordan, Collins and J.K. Rowling all represented this year, Vietina said Lucca will become "the realm where great literature meets great cinema."

What does this change for fans on the ground?

The answer lies in scale and money. This year Lucca has set its all-time record for investments from studios and streamers, Vietina said. That spending translates into dedicated experience spaces beyond the premieres: stands for "Percy Jackson," "Harry Potter," "Dexter" and other franchises, alongside the thousands of cosplayers who pour into the town each day.

How central are video games this year?

Very. Vietina emphasized crossovers between cinema and gaming, pointing to a significant presence from Polish developer CD Projekt Red, featuring "Cyberpunk 2077," the "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners" animation and "The Witcher" with its latest downloadable content.

"It's clear that this European studio has truly embraced the crossover concept, especially given the news surrounding a cinematic expansion for 'Cyberpunk 2077,'" he said.

Game directors Hideki Kamiya, behind "Resident Evil 2," "Devil May Cry" and "Okami," and Yoshinori Kitase, who will reconnect Lucca with Square Enix and the "Final Fantasy" fan base, are both expected. The creators of "Alien: Isolation 2," a game Vietina called "very strongly driven by movies," will also attend.

Animation returns as a major focus. Bartosz Sztybor and Saya Elder, producer and showrunner of "Edgerunners," will come to Lucca, as will Victor Cartwright, co-creator of Cartoon Network Studios' "Adventure Time."

Vietina called Lord's presence "truly meaningful," calling the Aardman founder "one of the most significant legacies in the field." The full program runs Oct. 28 through Nov. 1, and the record studio investment suggests the crossover model Vietina has championed is now paying for itself.