The final day of CincemaCon could have easily been called Tom Cruise day as Paramount showcase two of his films, amid their wares.
Paramount’s president, former actor turned producer (his shingle Tollin-Robbins produced a number of WB/CW shows) Brian Robbins touted films :
-BABYLON by Damien Chazzelle (WHIPLASH, LALA LAND). Starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, it’s background is Hollywood’s transition from silent films to talkies. Pitt wil be playing John Gilbert and Robbie Clara Bow. It also stars Katherine Waterston, Max MInghella, Eric Roberts, Lukas Haas and Samara Weaving
Someone get Emma Mackey and Jamie Pressley on the phone.
-As part of their sizzle reel a title card was flashed for A QUIET PLACE spinoff named A QUIET PLACE : DAY ONE. There is still set to be a standard third film A QUIET PLACE - PART III for 2025.
-Trailer for MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 7, which
which reveals that it is named MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, scheduled for a July 24, 2023 release.
Which is insane as they are currently filming MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 8 so I take it to mean MI7 is actually split into two parts and the 8th - and likely final- film is its own film. Or maybe they have just not formally announced that MI8 is no more and the currently filming one is, indeed, MI: DEAD RECKONING PART TWO. In any case the currently shooting one is slated for a June 28, 2024 release.
In any case: TBT the tremendous women of Mission Impossible (not counting the women who didn’t stick around like Maggie Q and Paula Patton).
The event closed out with the attendees seeing TOP GUN: MAVERICK in its entirety.
Delayed from a 2020 release and a whopping 36 years after the first film, Tom Cruise returns to the role of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, who returns to train newbies (which includes Miles Teller and Glen Powell-
(in the tradition of Cruise gifting his costars, unlike Dakota Fanning who still receives shoes for her birthday from him, and others who get an annual Christmas cake, Powell was gifted flight training so he could get a pilot license).
By all accounts the movie by the attendees and some have even took time to say how great Lady Gaga’s song for the film is. Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” and Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” are big shoes to fill, Stephanie. Let’s see if her track stands the test of the time.
What happens in Las Vegas definitively does not stay in Las Vegas.
Ooooh, wheee! What’s up with that?! What’s up with THAT?!
If true that these documents were from Jason Sudeikis’ legal team, surely they know Wilde’s schedule as (I would assume) she would let Jason or his assistant know of her schedule so she could be reached if something arises concerning their kids. There are better places to serve her than her presentation. Hell, even as she’s departing the stage would be a better time.
Day Two of CinemaCon. From some attendees’ accounts it started out soft with Neon (who, along with A24, are holding down the indie ground that Annapurna Pictures had to vacate due to financial issues). Neon’s offerings?
- The full length trailer for David Cronenberg’s CRIMES OF THE FUTURE starring Viggo Mortensen (who has starred in four Cronenberg films. Mortensen returned the favour and cast Cronenberg in his directorial debut FALLING), Léa Seydoux and Kristen Stewart. The trailer will be released to the public next week ahead of its Cannes debut.
-Brett Morgen’s MOONAGE DAYDREAM which is a feature length tribute to David Bowie featuring concert footage and interviews.
-DocumentaryFIRE OF LOVE about married volcano scientists.
WB brought out their big guns -
No not the superhero films -Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s arms!
Johnson took center stage to promote his two projects: BLACK ADAM (whose trailer was shown) and DC LEAGUE OF SUPERPETS.
Other news:
-BATMAN returns….for THE BATMAN 2 with director Matt Reeves, RPattz and the other Gothamnites in tow.
THE NUN also gets the sequel treamen
As expected were teasers for THE FLASH, AQUAMAN AND THE LAST KINGDOM, SHAZAM! : THE FURY OF THE G-DS.
Logo for BLUE BEETLE starring COBRA KAI’s Xolo Maridueña.
BLUE BEETLE was to get the HBO Max treatment but WB decided for a theatrical release. Rumors is that they are pondering doing the same for their live-action BATGIRL.
Non-hero content was WONKA,
theSALEM’s LOT remake (produced by James Wan, going back to his horror roots) and Olivia Wilde’s DON’T WORRY DARLING.
A good portion of WB’s presentation was carved out for Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS starring Austin Butler (who will be in DUNE 2) and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker.
Luhrmann who is behind electric and eclectic projects like STRICTLY BALLROOM, ROMEO +JULIET, MOULIN ROUGE and Netflix’s THE GET DOWN will hopefully bring the same pizzazz to ELVIS. If Doja Cat’s offering for the soundtrack (snippet) is any indication the film won’t be a paint-by-numbers biopic.
Also news of the release date of the live-action BARBIE film starring Margot Robbie,
Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, Simu Liu and Alexandria Shipp and others. BARBIE -written by Greta Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach and directed by Gerwig - drives her pink corvette to the theaters on July 21, 2023. BARBIE is conterprogrammed against Universal’s OPPENHEIMER which will be released the same day. OPPENHEIMER is Christopher Nolan’s first film with Universal after he defected from Warner Bros. after their direct to streaming debacle in 2021.
Universal/Blumhouse ended the evening with a screening of the film THE BLACK PHONE starring Ethan Hawke.
This is not Hawke’s first Blumhouse film -he starred in SINISTER and the first (and very different from the subsequent entries but no less great) THE PURGE.
Also out of Universal is news that Justin Lin has dropped out of directing the tenth FAST AND FURIOUS film FAST X. This was to be his sixth FAST film.
While CinemaCon is one of my favourite events of the year I am wary of following today’s WB event so I won’t be spoiled for the the DC slate but their other wares I am following.
Today kicked of CinemaCon - the national convention of theater owners. The event gives participating studios the chance to trot out their new wares for the same theater owners the studios are scr*wing over by reducing the theatrical window so greatly in order to drive up subscriptions to the studios’ streaming platforms.
Day One: A very interesting panel called “The French Reset”. The topic at hand is how the government and the film industry has reached an agreement to shrink the window for a film’s release to cable and streaming. What is so significant about this France’s 36 month window from theater to streaming/cable was the reason Netflix has battled to have their films shown at Cannes. When Netflix was first allowed to screen at Cannes, the film fest’s president was nearly ousted for letting it happen because their rule was that films shown have to agree to the wait out period and as Netflix’s model is direct streaming they would not agree with movie theater owners on the wait-out period. The new window is a year to 1 ½ years but this is still significantly less than before.
Later in the day will be an International Panel with Denis Villeneuve as one of the panelists, albeit virtually as he is doing pre-production on DUNE 2.
The first studio up is Sony (which doesn’t have a streamer so their films, over the next five years, will go directly to Netflix and then to Disney+/Hulu when that deals ends).
After showing a montage of their hit movies (even including MORBIUS which is the epitome of participation prize), patted itself on the back for SPIDER-MAN : NO WAY HOME racking in 1.9 billion dollars at box office they launched in to the panel.
What did the panel consist of?
-a 20-minutes of footage of David Leitch’s all-star BULLET TRAIN starring Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock, Lady Gaga, Bad Bunny, Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and more.
-Video intro from producer Reese Witherspoon for WHERE THE CRAWDAD SING starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (FRESH) and Harris Dickinson (THE KING’S MAN).
-Footage of Sony’s sure-to-be Oscar bait Viola Davis film THE WOMAN KING, directed by Gina Prince-Blythewood (THE OLD GUARD).
-Announcement that Sony is developing another Spider-Man standalone; this one of anti-hero EL MUERTO starring Bad Bunny. The film is slated for a January 12, 2024 release.
-(Phil)Lord and (Chris) Miller showed a rough cut of the first 15 minutes of SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (the threequel being SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE, to be released in 2024). They revealed that the film has 240 characters and the production employed a record making 1,000 people.
-Sizzle reel that contained footage from the Dakota Johnson fronted MADAME WEB, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s KRAVEN THE HUNTER
and mentions of the sequels to GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE and another VENOM.
New ‘Wonka’ footage was shown at Cinema Con today (April 26, 2022). ▪️▪️
Olivia Colman, Rowan Atkinson, Keegan-Michael Key, Sally Hawkins and more all crop up around several song-and-dance numbers led by Chalamet — who deftly tap dances on a cafe tabletop and leads a chorus of umbrella-wielding dancers spelling out his character’s name.
There’s even an appearance by a golden ticket — written on it is a note from Wonka’s mother, reminding him that the best part of eating sweets is sharing it with those you love. In the trailer’s final moments, a few bars of a ballad play, featuring Chalamet’s sweet voice singing about “an invisible thread” that connects us all.
The only sour note from the CinemaCon floor? Audiences will have to wait until Christmas 2023 to catch “Wonka” in action.
