Final Day
Paramount Presentation
The first thing on the final day (Thursday) was the Paramount presentation. (this is not in the actual order of the presentation).
They started with some teenage mutant ninja turtle dancers and skateboarders. Seth Rogen came out to show a couple clips and a new trailer for the animated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” which is scheduled to come out in August.
Continuing with animation they showed a not-yet-complete trailer for “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie” which is scheduled to follow the other movie in Sept.
Then they announced that they’re working on the first animated Transformers Movie called “Tramsformers One” which will be released July 2024.
They also announced that Paramount now has the Smurfs franchise (Sony previously had the movies). Although “The Smurfs Movie” isn’t coming out until Feb 2025, a very pregnant Rihanna came out on the stage to talk about the movie and announce that she will be the voice of Smurfette and also write some new songs for the movie. She said she hoped being in the Smurf movie will eventually give her some credit with her children. (Later, I heard some people saying they probably asked Rihanna to appear this year because next year she might be on tour)
Switching over to live action, they showed a new trailer for “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” coming in June.
Then they showed an extended chase scene from “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One” followed by a new trailer for the movie. They also mentioned that the release date was recently moved up a couple days from July 14 to July 12 (possibly to move farther away from “Oppenheimer” which opens the following Friday). Notably missing was a video appearance from Tom Cruise. Also, they didn’t mention the sequel movie which is supposedly coming out in 2024.
Next up John Krasinski came out to introduce the very first look at the spinoff movie “A Quiet Place: Day One” which is currently scheduled for early 2024. The clips showed a couple scenes in New York City when the creatures first came to Earth. I’m sure they’ll release a trailer for the movie sometime this summer.
John Krasinski also introduced a behind the scenes look at his next movie “If” which looks like it will be a family drama/comedy. It’s scheduled for summer 2024.
Next on the stage was Ziggy Marley who produced the upcoming biopic of his father “Bob Marley: One Love” which is scheduled to be released early in 2024.
Martin Scorsese took the stage to talk about “Killers of the Flower Moon” which Apple produced but Paramount will release in theaters worldwide this fall. He kept saying how “I designed to project this on a big screen. This is a big screen movie and that’s what we made..” (although he did acknowledge that Apple produced the movie). Then they showed a not-quite-finished trailer for the movie.
Best Moment: The teaser trailer for “Killers of the Flower Moon” was really good. Also, the chase scene from “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One” was good but not as good as the chase scene from “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” shown the day before from Disney.
It’s sort of odd that a lot of other studios were talking about all the movies they’re putting in theaters this year. By my count – including “Killers of the Flower Moon” – Paramount is scheduled to release just 5 movies this year.
Special Filmmaker Lunch Program
After the Paramount presentation I went straight to the Filmmaker lunch program and Martin Scorsese did too because after an introduction with a montage of his movies, he received the CinemaCon Legend of Cinema award which they said will be the “Martin Scorsese Legend of Cinema award” in the future. Martin Scorsese came out and in his speech, he urged movie theaters to show more independent movies. “…real indies, not ones with an indie “label slapped on,” since that’s the best insurance the industry has going foward. It’s what will beguile and attract new filmmakers to cinemas and ultimately, one or two might just create the next blockbuster.” After that Leonardo DiCaprio came out and they did a small interview about how he makes his movies. A lot of the discussion was about his upcoming movie.
Lionsgate Presentation
Right after the lunch I headed over to the Lionsgate presentation. The last studio presentation of CinemaCon. Their presentation was pretty short because right after it they were going to show the entire movie “Joy Ride”. They basically just mentioned some of their movies coming out this year including “The Expendables 4”, “Saw X”, and the Hunger Games prequel movie “The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes”. They showed the new teaser trailer for that movie. (they didn’t mention “Borderlands” although they showed some teaser photos of the movie at last year’s CinemaCon. I guess the movie isn’t coming out soon).
Then they brought out the cast and filmmakers of “Joy Ride” who talked a little bit about making the movie and how important it is to play in movie theater screens.
I had to do a couple things before I left Las Vegas so I didn’t stay to watch the movie.
Overall
The big theme of CinemaCon was about getting more movies into movie theaters this year. They’re trying to get as many movies as there were pre-pandemic so movie theaters can make more money. Including – they hope – a lot of movies produced by streaming sites like “Napoleon” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” (both from Apple – “Napoleon” will be released by Sony and “Killers of the Flower Moon’ will be released by Paramount.
The one thing NOT mentioned is the exclusive theatrical window which seems to be getting shorter – even for major studio releases. All the talk about getting more movies into movie theaters doesn’t help if the movies will be available on a streaming site 6-8 weeks later.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 