There’s a lot to cover: From the best trailers at CinemaCon (including Avengers: Doomsday blowing the doors off), a Tom Holland hologram, a Mandalorian movie that still looks like a Zoom meeting, David Ellison’s attempt at human earnestness, and some off-topic thoughts about Clavicular. So put down that ad crack and buckle up for the highs and lows of the exhibitor conference in Vegas…
LOST: DC Studios‘ Presentation: Any news out of CinemaCon about The Batman Part Two? Nope. Anything exciting from the Superman sequel? How about a video message with stars David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult saying they can’t wait to tell us more “someday”? There was a teaser for Clayface that left the audience mildly intrigued. And a new clip from Supergirl which some influencers said was good — Kara on a space-bus full of aliens who get attacked by pirates, with a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe. Nothing was bad, but one hopes for more excitement coming off the momentum of last year’s “we’re back, baby!” vibes from Superman and the terrific second season of Peacemaker.
The studio’s biggest headline was made outside of the convention hall, when news broke of Adria Arjona being cast in a mystery role in Man of Tomorrow. Is Arjona secretly playing Wonder Woman? She better be. Gunn is such a talented writer, he can make any obscure comic book character (like the rumored Maxima) appealing. But exhibitors would prefer a hero people have actually heard of. DC’s three biggest characters are Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman and the messaging about the comic Holy Trinity at CinemaCon seemed to be: “Bat-who?” “No comment” and “We’re working on it.”
WON: Marvel‘s Presentation: Whereas Marvel’s presentation was all: “Oh, you want our biggest characters back? Here’s every single one of them! Including the ones we killed off. And the actors who swore they were moving on from the MCU. Happy?! And yeah, we’ll probably throw in Happy Hogan too.” Marvel played the first legit trailer for Avengers: Firehouse of Spandex Down Your Gullet, a film that absolutely needs to work as it’s from the studio that recently brought you Captain America: Brave New World and the filmmakers who brought you Netflix’s The Electric State and Amazon’s Citadel.
The reaction on social media was incredibly positive, with several saying they had never experienced a response that overwhelming at CinemaCon. Disney actually showed the trailer twice (and not to pick on DC, but it’s tough to imagine, at the end of the Supergirl or Clayface clip, Peter Safran going, “Do you want to see that again?”). In the footage, Robert Downey Jr. was “unrecognizable” in his Dr. Doom mask and using a heavily accented voice, which does make one wonder if paying a former Marvel star a reported $100 million to return for an unrecognizable character is worth it (perhaps — like with Pedro Pascal in The Mandalorian and Grogu — there are scenes with character’s mask off).
It must be fun for Disney to have a film where the question isn’t whether it makes a billion, but exactly how many billions. Hanging over all this was the grim thought: Disney created something this huge and exciting that will make so much money … and they still laid off 1,000 people, many at Marvel, who worked so hard to make this happen.
Disney also announced something called Infinity Vision, which sounds like a new format, but is actually a “certification” for the studio to put their stamp of approval on premium format theaters which meet their high standards for screening Avengers: Doomsday. If that sounds like marketing bullshit to counter Dune locking up Imax, it most certainly is. Infinity Vision might as well be called, “We’re Not In Imax But Please Buy a More Expensive Ticket to Watch Our Movie Too.” What do you want to bet that Infinity Vision is never mentioned again three weeks after Doomsday opens and those Imax screens free up? If showing the Doomsday trailer twice was a move brimming with BDE, this felt like the opposite.
MIXED: Star Wars: It’s weird that Disney presented the first 20 minutes of the first Star Wars movie in seven years, and yet The Mandalorian and Grogu were almost forgotten once the Avengers trailer played. The final trailer released was the film’s best one yet — though Disney notably dug up John Williams’ iconic Star Wars themes to help punch that nostalgia button (the film’s score is by Ludwig Göransson). Jon Favreau is emphasizing the production used more practical sets than the show, but one critic who saw the footage said there are still shots that appear to use the dreaded Volume wall, including a scene where “each character [is] practically speaking to the camera against a blurry background that recreates the feeling of a Zoom meeting.” Look, betting against Favreau is probably unwise. The general consensus seems to be: “If you like The Mandalorian, you will like the movie.” But is that enough?
WON: Epic Prestige Trailers: Attendees were stunned by the first seven minutes of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three (“Saving Private Ryan with lasers” is how several described it) and footage from Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey (“It’s not a story, it’s the story,” Nolan modestly declared. “I would have brought [the cast], but the massive weight of extraordinary talent would have collapsed the stage”). Another trailer that impressed was Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, with Jeremy Strong playing Mark Zuckerberg so perfectly that we can’t wait to hear Brian Cox complain about it.
A new Spider-Man: Brand New Day scene was solid, though the presentation was curiously star-free. Holland bizarrely appeared via hologram (“Wait, we can do that now?” asks every other actor who dutifully showed up in Vegas). While Zendaya wasn’t there, she was on stage for Dune — which is like somebody saying they can’t go to a party with you because they have other plans, and then they show up with somebody else.
WON: Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Jason Momoa, Johnny Depp and (Sigh) David Ellison. After watching the trailer for Alejandro Iñárritu’s dark comedy Digger, attendees were rather unsure whether Cruise’s latest will be a good movie, let alone a hit, but everyone was talking about the actor’s radical transformation into a character with gray hair, a belly and wrinkles — in other words, they were stunned to see Tom Cruise look his actual age.
In his first-ever CinemaCon stage appearance, Spielberg received a hugely enthusiastic standing ovation and showed some intriguing Disclosure Day footage which helped lessen some of the box office uncertainty surrounding the title. The director revealed he convinced Universal to withhold the film’s entire third act from trailers, which, in a better world, would be the law of the land for all movie marketing.
Momoa was all over CinemaCon. He had Supergirl, Street Fighter and Dune: Part Three. As usual, Momoa brought his infectious energy, seeming just as excited to be in a movie as audiences are to see him.
Depp received a very warm welcome from exhibitors when he took the stage for Ti West’s Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol. Depp getting this reception at a major industry event is enough to qualify as a win given his recent history, but the movie’s footage was compelling as well.
Ellison was also a beneficiary of the expectations game. The audience expected a supervillain, yet begrudgingly had to admit he came off rather well (“Long live the movies!” declared a man who knows his audience). Ellison reiterated his pledge to increase the output from Warners’ and Paramount’s combined to at least 30 films a year with a minimum 45-day theatrical window each. “I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison said to a skeptical audience of folded arms (metaphorically, at least). Late Thursday, finger-to-the-wind AMC Theatres bent the knee and announced their “favorable view” of the merger (more on AMC in a minute).
Still, the Warners presentation was so strong — touting their record-breaking 2025 and a packed upcoming slate — while the Paramount presentation was so OK (their biggest headline being the development of a Top Gun: Maverick sequel everybody could have sworn had already been announced), that CinemaCon just reinforced the feeling that this merger should be happening in reverse.
LOST: Lionsgate: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping trailer looked strong, with the added money clearly on the screen. But you can’t win if you don’t even give a presentation (their Nobu party playing Michael Jackson music was, at least, something).
LOST: Alamo Drafthouse and AMC Moviegoers: We’ve written about Alamo Drafthouse’s “forget the biggest reason you love us and use your phones during the movie now” backlash. The pile-on against the once-beloved theater chain’s QR code ordering system hit a new level after Indiewire critic David Ehrlich penned a spectacular slow-burn-to-scorched-earth viral rant about his hellish experience during a (surely already hellish) Super Mario Galaxy Movie screening (calling the Alamo policy change — not the movie, though perhaps that too — “one of the most idiotic, nonsensical, brand-nuking heel-turns in the long and sordid history of late capitalism,” among other gems). Does parent Sony actually like this change? Don’t they want moviegoers to pay rapt attention to the pure cinema on display in Anaconda?
Without a shred of irony, Sony’s Tom Rothman then went on stage at CinemaCon to scold theater owners — other theater owners — for not providing a better user experience (“Get off the ad crack!” was the finest executive quote of the convention). Rothman urged owners to resist prioritizing short-term profit-boosting at the expense of long-term relationships with moviegoers (Tom, look out, the QR code is calling from inside the house!).
In other “yes, but how can we make moviegoers want to stay home?” ideas: Another exhibitor, AMC Theatres, announced they’re adding big screens in their lobbies to show ads. So even if you arrive late to dodge the 30 minutes of pre-show ads in the theatre, you’ll still get commercials blasted down on you, Blade Runner-style, while waiting at the concession counter for your commemorative Michael tie-in blanket (yes, a real thing, and you’ll be slowly pulling that blanket over my lifeless face before you’d ever catch me with one).
WON: Clavicular: In non-CinemaCon news, the looksmaxx influencer managed to unite the internets in mocking his dew-eyed meltdown and interview walk-off over being asked modestly difficult questions about his reputation (instead of being asked, say, which moisturizer is best for post-jaw hammering). Critics gleefully pointed out he was mogged by the show’s correspondent daddy, Adam Hegarty, who, admittedly, came off rather smug (but also seemed like he can, unlike Clavicular, change a tire). A few days later, Clavicular “overdosed” during a livestream, was rushed to the hospital, swore off “substances” and his publicist dumped him.
So how, pray tell, did this guy win? The only coin of the influencer realm is popularity and notoriety, and coming across rather vulnerable in the wake of his hospitalization arguably helps this guy (even if vulnerability is a quality Clavicular cannot himself appreciate). “I’d never even heard of Clavicular and suddenly he’s everywhere,” marveled one industry insider to a THR editor. Exactly. Clavicular personally had a very bad week, but if he cleans up his act, these last few days just might result in a career acceleration event.
All told, it was perhaps one of the newsiest and eventful CinemaCons in recent memory, which bodes well for the industry. Until next time, remember: Just say no to ad crack.
