It was the hottest ticket at this year's Comic-Con. Literally.

The producers of Game of Thrones, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, were to be locked in a convention centre auditorium with 6500 of the show's most rabid fans in the wake of incendiary criticism of the show's final, controversial season.

Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Invision

Alas, it will never come to pass.

Comic-Con organisers have confirmed Benioff and Weiss, as well as director/co-producer Miguel Sapochnik, will not appear as scheduled at the world's biggest film, television and comic book convention after all.

The trio, and members of the show's cast, had been scheduled to make one final appearance at Comic-Con, a victory lap of a sort, to close the chapter on the show's decade-long history.

Instead, fans will get a slightly thinner lineup: actors Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm), John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Liam Cunningham (Davos Seaworth), Conleth Hill (Varys), Maisie Williams (Arya insteaStark), and Isaac Hempstead Wright (Bran Stark).

Game of Thrones delivered a divisive final episode. HBO

The Game of Thrones panel will still be held in Comic-Con's largest venue, Hall H, and is scheduled for Saturday, Australian time.

In many respects, the cancellation of the show's two producers is unsurprising; the final episodes of the series were widely criticised online, and a fan petition calling on HBO to remake the final season with "competent writers" has drawn 1.68 million signatures.

In fan forums, some fans had called for the pair to be punished at the panel by sounding the "shame bell" during the panel.

The "shame bell" famously featured in an episode of the series in which Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) was forced to make a "walk of shame" while Septa Unella (Hannah Waddingham) rang a bell and repeatedly shouted "shame".

Australian comedy, Sarah's Channel, starring Claudia O'Doherty, is heading to Comic-Con. ABC

In the show's canon, that ritual is a penance in the "Faith of the Seven" which demands a confessed sinner walk stripped of clothing and jeered by observers; in the series, Cersei was subjected to the "shame bell" after admitting to adultery and incest with her cousin Ser Lancel Lannister.

Indeed HBO may have seen warning signs at a fan convention in Nashville, Tennessee, last weekend, when actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who played Jaime Lannister, had to field questions from irate fans.

"This happens every season," Coster-Waldau said. "We're so lucky to be part of a show where people care so much about it that you also get upset when it doesn't go the way you want it to.

"That's fantastic and I love it and I love that there was an online petition to have it rewritten," Coster-Waldau said.

Gotham City to San Diego: Ruby Rose's Batwoman is making her debut at Comic-Con. Warner Bros

Coster-Waldau defended the show's finale, telling the Nashville audience "everyone on Game of Thrones, and there are thousands, we worked our asses off to make the best show we could for the ending."

The timing of the convention appearance is perhaps the only aspect of it that makes creative and commercial sense; it will come just days after Game of Thrones was nominated for 32 awards.

Media coverage of the Comic-Con panel will position the show and some of its key players prominently during the voting window for the awards.

Game of Thrones has already notched up 128 nominations and 47 wins at the Emmys.

Wonder Woman 1984 stars Gal Gadot (right) and Chris Pine at last year's Comic-Con. Supplied

Meanwhile, Benioff and Weiss are now working on a new Star Wars trilogy for the Disney-owned Lucasfilm.

In what could only be described as slightly better news, the online petition to have them removed from that project - fuelled by post-Game of Thrones anger - has attracted a substantially smaller number of signatures: just 33,949 people have signed.

The four-day Comic-Con International convention is held annually in San Diego, California, and pushes approximately 130,000 people through its turnstiles.

The only pop culture event which exceeds that is the New York Comic-Con which set a ticket sale record last year with more 250,000 tickets sold.

Jason Momoa, Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman at the Aquaman panel at 2018 Comic-Con. Supplied

In addition to high-profile series such as Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and Supergirl, this year's convention will be the launch stage for the new Warner Bros series Batwoman, starring Australian actress Ruby Rose.

The series is one of the most anticipated shows of the year, surfing off the back of a guest appearance by Rose in the iconic "Bat-costume" in a sequence of crossover episodes with other DC Comics-based shows including Supergirl, The Flash and Arrow last year.

The comedy series Sarah's Channel, from Australia's ABC, will also be showcased at this year's Comic-Con, the first time an Australian program has been given a launchpad at the annual convention.

The series, produced by Robbie Miles, Karen Colston, Rick Kalowski and Que Minh Luu, is the story of a "beauty vlogger" who is revived in the far future to save a dying colony of mutant surviors.

The show's star, Australian comedian Claudia O'Doherty, and two of its producers, Miles and Colston, will appear in a panel discussion about the show at the convention.

Other Australian stars in attendance include Gigi Edgley, who starred in the sci-fi series Farscape and hosted the competition series Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge.

Several new television series are also launching at the convention, including Amazon's The Boys, which stars New Zealand actors Karl Urban and Antony Starr, a new Batman spin-off series Pennyworth, about the early post-military life of Batman's butler Alfred, and the UK drama Snowpiercer, based on the French comic by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette.