After a showcase for specialty cinema, the big studios began their series of showcases at CinemaCon on Monday night, starting with Sony Pictures and its famously freewheeling chairman, Tom Rothman.
Rothman, who is known for his enthusiastic support of movie theaters and dropping a few expletives at their doomsayers from the Las Vegas stage, was back once again to sing the praises of theaters for enduring through adversity. And this time, he promised the “least profane” speech he would ever give at the convention But with that praise came some tough love — the sort that would usually come from former Paramount distribution chief Chris Aronson — about what studios need in return from exhibition.
“Admissions have clearly been down from pre-COVID, and if we’re going to fix that, which we can, we all have urgent work to do,” he said. “I urge you all now to make some hard choices for the long term rather than the short term.”
Rothman’s speech echoed many of the same talking points that Aronson would espouse in CinemaCons past, including screening fewer pre-film ads in theaters to ensure that moviegoers would be willing to show up on time to see trailers. He also urged them to support longer windows for films and keep them in theaters longer, even if it means that they can’t screen every film from every studio.
And most of all, he urged theaters to find ways to make moviegoing more affordable, calling it the “number one economic issue” keeping formerly frequent moviegoers from coming to theaters since the pandemic.
“It’s hard, and business I know has been tough,” he said. “I’m not heckling. I’m rooting for you!”
Rothman’s speech was part of a CinemaCon presentation that kicked off with a standup act from Nate Bargatze asking about why his 6-year-old son got to pay less than he did for a movie ticket. “We’re seeing the same movie! He didn’t fight in a war. He’s six!”
Bargatze was on hand to promote his first feature film, “The Breadwinner” alongside his co-star Mandy Moore, and told theater owners that he wanted to work with them because as a comedian, “I’m in the ticket selling business, just like you. So let’s sell tickets!” Sony then showed off sneak peeks for not one but two Spider-Men, as first-ever looks at scenes from Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and Sony Pictures Animation’s trilogy capper “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” were shown. Peter Parker faced meeting his best friends for the first time since their memories were erased, while Miles Morales faced off against his villainous counterpart from another dimension
On the franchise horror side, new trailers were revealed for “Insidious: Out of the Further” and “Resident Evil,” the latter of which marks Zach Cregger’s first foray into IP filmmaking after having his biggest hit yet last year with “Weapons.”
And on the prestige front, Sony showed off the latest films from two award-winning filmmakers: Aaron Sorkin and Taika Waititi. Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” got its first trailer, examining Facebook’s impact on the January 6 riots in 2021.
Waititi, meanwhile, unveiled a brand new project starring Jenna Ortega: “Klara and the Sun,” an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s dystopian sci-fi novel in which the “Wednesday” star plays a solar-powered AI companion for a teenage girl. Finally, to close out the show, Dwayne Johnson and the cast of the “Jumanji” revival series came out to present the trailer and title for “Jumanji: Open World.” The previous two “Jumanji” films combined to gross more than $1.75 billion worldwide, and the third will be tasked with meeting the $800 million-plus global totals of its predecessors against stiff competition like “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Dune: Part Three.” With “Spider-Man” and “Jumanji” on the 2026 slate, it should be a big year for Sony after a relatively slow 2025 with just $560 million in domestic grosses. But the studio had one big bright spot with “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle,” which became the highest grossing anime film of all time with $738.5 million grossed worldwide.
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