Industry News
by saidiontheside

cinemacon 2026

Hello everyone,

Here’s the highlights from CINEMACON 2026.

SONY PICTURES

Sony Pictures CEO and chairman Tom Rothman stressed 3 changes that need to happen for movie theaters.  1) Longer theatrical windows.  He called the 35 day exclusive theatrical window Universal recently agreed to as “a good start”.  2) Shorten the length of trailers/commercials that play over 30 minutes in some theatres.  3) Going to the movies must be affordable again (not sure of the details but some news sites say that means lowering ticket prices for some days/showtimes).

Movies promoted:

  • “Spider-Man Brand New Day” – They showed clips from the big Sony/Marvel sequel coming this summer.
  • “Resident Evil Reboot” – a trailer for the rebooted film franchise coming Sept 18.
  • “Insidious: Out of the Further” – trailer for 6th installment of the franchise coming August 21.
  • “Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse” – Footage from the 3rd animated movie coming June 18, 2027.
  • “The Social Reckoning” – First look at the sequel to “The Social Network” coming out Oct 9.
  • “Jumanji Open World” – They announced the title and showed a trailer for the next movie in the “Jumanji” franchise coming out this Christmas.

WARNER BROS

Warner Bros introduced a new specialty film label called ‘Warner Bros Clockwork”.  Oscar winner Sean Bakers next movie “Ti Amo!” is the first movie that will be released under the new label in 2027.

The made no mention about the upcoming merger but said they were planning on 18 film releases in 2027.

  • “Digger” – A new trailer for the movie from Alejandro G Inarritu starring Tom Cruise was shown.  The description is “The film follows Cruise, who plays Digger Rockwell, the most powerful man in the world. The balding, big-bellied industrialist races to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything.”  It comes out Oct 2, 2026.
  • “The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum” – The new Lord of the Rings movie that is scheduled to come out Dec 17, 2027.
  • “Evil Dead Burn” – The next film in the franchise comes out July 24.
  • “Clayface” – The DC part of the presentation started with a teaser for “Clayface” which is currently scheduled for October 23.
  • “Supergirl” – New footage for the superhero movie coming June 26.
  • “Practical Magic 2” – They showed a new trailer for the sequel starring the original cast.
  • “The Great Beyond” – The sci-fi/fantasy movie from J.J. Abrams coming Nov 13.
  • “Dune 3” – The last thing they showed was the first 7 minutes of the third “Dune” movie coming Dec 18.

They also mentioned in production movies “The Flood” from director Zac Creggers coming Aug 11, 2028.  The “Weapons” spinoff movie “Gladys” for Sept 8, 2028, an “Ocean 11” prequel movie coming June 25, 2027, “Final Destination 7” sequel on May 12, 2028, the sequel “The Revenge of La Llorona” on April 7, 2027, and an untitled “Joan of Arc” movie from director Baz Luhrmann on November 22, 2028.

UNIVERSAL

  • “Snoop Dog Biopic”  The presentation opened with Snoop Dogg talking about an unnamed bipic that will start filming in the Los Angeles area this summer.
  • “The Odyssey” The showed an extended clip of Christopher Nolans movie coming
  • “One Night Only” First look at the romantic comedy coming Aug 7.  They commented that there were fewer romantic comedies released in theaters these days.  Universal Warns “If We Don’t Act Now, Love Will Leave Theaters Forever”
  • “Minions & Monsters” Footage from the upcoming animated sequel coming July 1.
  • “Focker In Law” – Clips from the 4th movie in the “Focker” franchise coming this Thanksgiving.
  • “Werwulf” – Robert Eggers film set in 13th century England coming Christmas Day
  • “Disclosure Day” – An extended look at the new story by/directed by Steven Spielberg movie coming June 12th   Steven Spielberg praised the decision to movie back to 45 day exclusive theatrical windows.  At one point he said, “Do I hear 60????”

AMAZON/MGM

The started the presentation by hinting at the development of the next James Bond movie although no new announcements about casting were mentioned.

Mike Hopkins restated that Amazon/MGM is committed to releasing movies theatrically.

  • “The Thomas Crown Affair” – Michael B Jordan gave a first look of the reboot that he stars in and is directing which he is starring in and directing coming March 5, 2027.
  • “Spaceballs: The New One” – They showed a teaser of the Spaceballs sequel coming April 23, 2027
  • “Verity”  Based on the bestselling book, the thriller comes out Oct 2.
  • “Highlander” – They showed some first look photos of the reboot.
  • “I Play Rocky” – They gave a first look about the biopic of the original “Rocky”.

PARAMOUNT

New CEO David Ellison announced he is also committed to the 45-day exclusive theatrical window and he said that once the merger with Warner Bros is finished they will be releasing a combined 30 films a year from the two studios.

  • “Streetfighter” – Some new footage from the reboot movie coming Oct 16 was shown.
  • “Hit Me Hard Hit Me Soft” Billie Eilish and James Cameron introduced an extended look at the concert film coming May 8.
  • “Scary Movie”  Footage from the upcoming sequel/reboot was shown.
  • “Jackass: Best and Last” – Johnny Knoxville came out to show the first trailer of the upcoming Jackass sequel.
  • “Heart of the Beast” – Footage of the thriller starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Ayer was shown.
  • “Mr. Irrelevant: The John Tuggle Story” – They showed a new trailer of the movie based on a true story which is coming out around Christmas.
  • “Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol” – Johnny Depp took the stage to talk about the new version of the movie that he stars in.
  • “Children of Blood and Bone” – The first footage of the movie based on a book.
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They also mentioned a “Call of Duty” movie currently in production and a new “Top Gun” sequel and “Transformers” movie is being developed.

DISNEY

Before “Avengers: Doomsday” comes out at the end of this year, the previous “Avengers Endgame” will be released theatrically with additional scenes.

Disney announced a new certification called “Infinity Vision” which is supposed to “signifies a theater meets rigorous technical standards for the ultimate moviegoing experience”  Some websites were saying they started this because “The Odyssey” has claimed almost all the IMAX screens (so “Moana” and “Spider-Man Brand New Day” won’t get any) and “Dune 3” has claimed almost all the IMAX screens (so “Avengers Doomsday” won’t get any) so they want to promote the big screen but NON IMAX movie theaters showing their movies.

  • “The Devil Wears Prada 2” – New footage was shown of the movie opening in a couple weeks.
  • “The Mandalorian and Grogu” – Director Jon Favreau showed the opening sequence of the Star Wars movie coming May 28th. 
  • “Toy Story 5” – Tom Hanks and Tim Allen showed new footage of the Pixar sequel coming this summer.
  • “Moana” – Dwayne Johnson introduced some new footage of the live action version of the movie coming this July.
  • “The Dog Stars” – They showed some footage of the post-apocalyptic movie based on the book coming this fall.
  • “Hexed” – Footage from Disney’s next animated movie coming this Thanksgiving.
  • “Ice Age Boiling Point” – The first sequel of the animated franchise since Disney bought Fox coming Feb 2027.
  • “Avengers Doomsday” – The final movie promoted was the upcoming Avengers movie coming this December 18.