We're back home after an extremely eventful week at CinemaCon and to recap this week's biggest moments and reveals, we've compiled a thorough recap of what we see and heard throughout the course of the week and what it could mean for theaters across the globe these next two years.
From Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Black Adam to Jurassic World: Dominion and The Flash to Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One and John Wick: Chapter 4, we saw it all and you can read all about it below.
Also, please let us know your thoughts on this week's live blogs - if you were a fan, we can certainly try to run it back at some point in the future, possibly for San Diego Comic-Con, the next Disney Investor Day, DC FanDome, or something else.
To get our final thoughts on all of this week's presentations, click the NEXT or VIEW LIST (ONE PAGE) buttons:
Walt Disney Studios
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Disney rarely pulls out all the stops at CinemaCon and this year was no different as they opted not to bring any talent and only showed off five films: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Lightyear, The Bob's Burgers Movie, Amsterdam, and Avatar: The Way of Water.
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Kevin Feige was thankfully in attendance to tease the future of Marvel Studios, albeit without revealing anything we didn't already know. Before he debuted the first twenty or so minutes from Multiverse of Madness, he let us know that he was about to head back to a Marvel Studios retreat where the team was hard at work mapping out the next decade of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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The footage was unsurprisingly well-received, but it was what they didn't show that was more curious. While we were expecting them to tease their entire 2022 slate, or at least their summer slate, they curiously didn't show anything from Thor: Love and Thunder, which is out in July. We didn't even get a replay of the trailer, only fleeting shots in a lengthy Disney sizzle reel at the beginning. Regardless, it does look great.
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was also a no-show, which was also a bit curious since they had Avatar 2 footage to show off, but nothing from a sequel that arrives a month earlier? Marvel Studios, of course, doesn't need the extra publicity, but something we heard later in the day has us wondering whether this Ryan Coogler sequel will actually arrive this year...
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We want to stress that we're not in the scoop game, but CinemaCon is always good for getting some behind-the-scenes industry intel. This year, we may or may not have heard through the grapevine that the release dates for Thor: Love and Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever may not be as set in stone as previously believed. A source suggested to us that Love and Thunder could possibly be moved to November, with Wakanda Forever being pushed into next year as it may not be ready in time for its current date. This is all a bit speculative and we did hear it before Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels swapped dates, so it's seeming less likelier by the day, but we just wanted to put it out there as something to consider.
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Disney also screened the first thirty minutes of Lightyear and it's surprisingly more emotional than the trailers have suggested and a considerably darker Pixar offering than the Toy Story films. Chris Evans is perfect casting and we're certainly looking forward to seeing the rest.
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Avatar: The Way of Water was their big-ticket item and closed out the show with its first teaser trailer. The world has been waiting for this one for a long time and, based on the 3D footage, it doesn't look to disappoint, although the trailer didn't differentiate itself from the original as much as we'd hoped, especially for a film thirteen years in the making. The underwater sequences were stunning as were the new beasts and James Cameron is among the best of the best, but we're going to need a lot more before we're completely sold on this one.