It's interesting that people bring up the financial aspect. If I remember, the first time there was a Merlin panel at SDCC (2010), only Colin and Tony were invited by the Merlin producers to participate, with a video of Bradley conducting an interview shown during the panel. The next year Bradley and Katie were brought in to join Colin and Tony, but Angel was not included (instead she got to do a video interview as Bradley had done the year before).
This was definitely a case of being invited or not (Bradley has said regarding 2010 SDCC that the producers had decided that only Tony and Colin would go). At the time I thought it was ridiculous that Shine couldn't come up with a plane ticket for Bradley, but of course they would also be paying him for his time. The extra cost of one more star at the first event was evidently more than they wanted to spend at their first SDCC outing.
So Shine is much more careful with funds then you would think the producers of a hit show would be. That could be a factor with the panels now, because several years in, Colin Bradley, Katie are more established and bigger stars, and probably are going to charge more for their time. And time probably seems a lot more precious going in to a 5th year of heavy production. Bradley especially seems a little burnt out and not wanting to do all the extra promoting that the actors were excited to do those first years. Just thoughts.
This was definitely a case of being invited or not (Bradley has said regarding 2010 SDCC that the producers had decided that only Tony and Colin would go). At the time I thought it was ridiculous that Shine couldn't come up with a plane ticket for Bradley, but of course they would also be paying him for his time. The extra cost of one more star at the first event was evidently more than they wanted to spend at their first SDCC outing.
So Shine is much more careful with funds then you would think the producers of a hit show would be. That could be a factor with the panels now, because several years in, Colin Bradley, Katie are more established and bigger stars, and probably are going to charge more for their time. And time probably seems a lot more precious going in to a 5th year of heavy production. Bradley especially seems a little burnt out and not wanting to do all the extra promoting that the actors were excited to do those first years. Just thoughts.
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