The Big Picture - The 15 Most Anticipated Movies at CinemaCon, and Our Trip to Las Vegas!

Episode Date: April 5, 2025

Sean and Amanda recap their recent trip to Las Vegas for CinemaCon and catch up on the latest news from around the industry, including some exclusive insight on the ‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’ sort-of sequel, which will reportedly be directed by David Fincher. Then, they are joined by Puck’s Matt Belloni to talk about their 15 most anticipated movies from CinemaCon. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Matthew Belloni Producers: Jon Jones and Marcelino Ortiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. "...just be yourself and the guests will come." Don't be the celebrity that this is their, like, sixth thing they're doing. "...I love True Crime and Cooking podcast. Is there any way you could combine the two?" Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast.

So join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there, we're just trying everyone has an opinion and a podcast. So join me for good hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney+. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage

to explore her sexuality with some encouragement from her best friend, Nikki. FX's Dying for Sex, now streaming only on Disney+. Sign up now at Disneyplus.com. Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new. Get access to primetime dining reservations by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege Card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first-come, first-serve spots at select-top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at OpenTable.ca forward slash Visa Dining. I'm Sean Fennessy.

I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture conversation show about CinemaCon and our trip to Las Vegas in a little bit. Matt Bellamy from the Town podcast will be joining Amanda and me for a home and home double podcast to talk about the annual theatrical trade show called CinemaCon. Scuttlebutt behind the scenes in the movie industry, how things are going right now. Spoiler alert, not very good. Nevertheless, we did see some very exciting new trailers and previews of movies that are coming over the next 12,

24, 36, 48 months. Keep going. 60 months. 60, 72, what's three divided by, I don't, three times 12. They don't seem as excited about the things this year, so they had to talk about things for the next decade. We'll talk about that with Matt soon. Only 36.

Only 36 months till The Beatles. Only, no, 48, I think. No, 36, you're right. Yeah, I just did the math. 12 times three. I wanted to say thank you to you for filling in for me on the show while I was in Boston. Thanks to Yasi and Jomi and Jack and Jade and the whole, the entire, all of Gen Z. And those Gen Z frauds, like Jomi. All of Gen Z. And those Gen Z frauds, like Jomi. Um... No, he's borderline and he's representing an important demographic,

just as you are a cusp millennial Gen X. I'm not. I'm 1982, so I am a millennial. But emotionally. I am emotionally from the greatest generation, and I am culturally from Gen X, and I am literally from millennia. I think it's important to honor those of us in the middle. Okay. You know?

This is probably the longest I've ever been away from the podcast, not counting holidays and the birth of my child. Yeah, the birth of your child. Yeah. Yeah. So it felt like a lot happened while I was gone in the news. Did you enjoy that or did you feel stressed all the time? Like you needed to call me up and yell about something.

I didn't feel that, no. I was really busy. I wasn't on vacation. I was in Boston. Thank you to the fine people of the city of Boston, who I've been known to show a lot of support to historically. They were amazing for the Live Re-Watchables event that we did with Chris Ryan and Bill and Ryan Rosillo.

Me, Chris, Bill and Ryan had never done a pod before. Oh. So that was great. Rosillo absolutely cooked. He is the man. I have never met him. Still, I honestly never want to meet him. It's like, it is a real, don't meet your heroes.

Don't, you know, don't take away the magic. Incredible stuff. And I've only listened to his podcasts about movies, AKA rewatchables, and or his travelogues and history lessons. There's so much more there. Just the time in the green room with him was enough for a great pod, to be honest. I know Craig can attest to that. We had a really good time in Boston.

We also did the rewatchables film festival where me, Bill and Chris talked before and after a handful of movies, heist movies, Boston movies. And we did it at the Coolidge Corner Theater, which is an absolutely awesome theater in Brookline that both Chris and Bill had a big personal relationship to since they lived in Boston. Honestly, just amazing people showing up for like a 10 15pm screening of Heat, stay until 145 haranguing Chris Ryan in the alleyway behind the theater afterwards, you know, I signed lots of physical media.

People just showed out. It was really, it was a nice time, we had a good time. That's, you found your people. Yeah, well, they came to us. We demanded they come to us. Listen, not to, you know, gender is a construct. How many women in that screening? I counted, there were one, two... Two. Two. There were two. No, no. There were plenty of women. There were a number of women. There's some Dobb Mob there.

Thank you so much. Love you, Dobb Mob. Were they Dobb Mob in the, like, I'm here with my, like, dirtbag partner? Yeah, they were Dobb Mob in the way that Charlene is Dobb Mob to Chris Scheherlis, which is a segue to my next conversation, which is RIP to Val Kilmer. Legendary film star, one of the great movie stars of our youth, someone who we have talked about ad nauseum on this show and especially on the rewatchables. Some of his best movies have been featured on that show. He died sadly

at 65 this week, obviously had been dealing with a lot of physical maladies over the last five, 10 years, and so has not been as much in the spotlight, although quite memorably in your beloved Top Gun Maverick where he has a crucial scene in that movie and gives a great performance opposite Tom Cruise. What's your lasting memory of Val? What's your favorite Val? It is Iceman, you know, and that is because it has become such a central part of, in my household, we watch it a lot, but also growing up,

and I, watching the original Top Gun, which we love very much. And then, in the same way that I thought Top Gun Maverick was like a very beautiful expansion of, and meditation really on like Tom Cruise and movie stars and aging and time and all of that stuff, the way that they use that Kilmer character and performance is astonishing and like really moving and he gets an amazing performance out of Tom Cruise opposite him who led CinemaCon in a moment of silence for him. Which was like a little awkward, but very touching also. So, I mean, Iceman for sure, we were reminiscing about Love at First Sight.

Which definitely jumps out to me. Obviously like you'll talk about Heat. I really did like his documentary that he, yes, Val that he participated in a few years ago because it was done with his cooperation, which always has its pluses and minuses, but he was a unique guy, a real, an actor, an artist and talking about, or first of all, the way that he communicates in that movie is obviously

affected by his illnesses over the last 10 to 15 years. So that's very interesting. But the way that he reflects on being a leading man in the 90s, what fit, what really didn't fit, gave you a sense of him in a cool way. It's interesting. He is someone who was a locked down actual leading man, put him on the poster movie star for a significant portion of time in the 1990s and even going back to the mid-80s when he broke out with Real Genius and Top Secret and all of those comedies.

But he was often at his best playing number two. You know, in Heat, he's number two. In Tombstone, he's number two. In Top Gun, he's number two. He was a high, high, high, high level supporting player. And we always joke about Brad Pitt as the character actor in The Leany Man's Body. I wouldn't say Val Kilmer was a character actor specifically

because he had a kind of valeness to everything that he did even when he transformed into Jim Morrison. But he was really good at supporting stars who maybe had less personality than he did. I really, I loved watching him in movies, you know, all the way up to Maverick. I loved watching him in those strange Francis Ford Coppola movies that he was making in the 2000s. You know, he's really very talented actor, very eccentric person in a compelling way. Rest in peace to the great Val Kilmer. Couple more quick things. Sundance announced while I was gone that it is moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027.

Next year will be the last year at Park City. Any thoughts? For people who like mountains, that's great news. And so you're not one of those people? This might augur my return to Sundance. Probably not for me unless, I mean, we'll go for the show. It's fine. I just, it's very cold.

I'd like to say to the fine people of Colorado, I love your state. I hope you'll welcome me in the future. I've been many times. Maybe that's a long-term destination for me, you know? You do talk about that a lot. It's in play. That's fine for you. I'd prefer wine country for you. Okay. If I'm coming to visit.

So you can visit. Yeah. But is the invitation even going to be extended? Not really sure. Hard to say. Okay, this is actually the big news. This is the very, very big news. And before that... No, it's one of two, okay? Okay, it's one of two.

Well, this is news. We have news and trailers. Yes. Yes, well, the... How you doing? Status check, ten minutes in. Let's break it down. Okay. We were at Cinemacon together, How you doing? Status check, ten minutes in. How you feeling? Let's break it down. We were at Cinemacon together, and this is every major movie studio, with the exception of one studio,

presenting every single thing that it's going to be releasing, really over the next couple of years, but specifically in the next 12 months. And on the second day, while that is happening... Which also happens to be April 1st, also known as April Fool's Day. We get word, I think, originally via an exclusive from the Playlist, which is a reputable Hollywood news site,

but by no means one of the, like, leading trades that there is in fact going to be a quote-unquote, what was described as a sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's ninth feature film that came out in 2019, that is legendary to us and that we love, and that that film is going to happen at Netflix, directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth. Now, when I was in Boston, I got a, I heard a rumor

that David Fincher was developing a sequel movie at Netflix that was going to star Brad Pitt. This was not, I don't usually report on these kinds of things. It's not really, I hear stuff all the time. There's no way for me to verify that. I don't have David Fincher's phone number. But I was like, that's interesting. And I spent some time with Chris talking about this rumor. And I was like, is this a Fight Club sequel?

Is it a Benjamin Button sequel? Is it the World War Z sequel that they had talked about doing? I did not hear anything about Quentin Tarantino when I heard this rumor. We never even thought it could be a Cliff Booth thing, because it just seems weird. Come to find out, not only was it announced on April 1st and seemed fake, it is in fact the exact opposite. It is very real. It is borderline confirm real.

And I got word from someone who is in the Tarantino camp that is not Quentin that day that was like, it's so funny that everyone is so afraid to be wrong about this because of the day when this was announced, because this is real. And I was sitting in my seat at CinemaCon when it happened, kind of like basically trying to play it cool. Yes. And I think I've been trying to play it cool for like 72 hours. Yeah, it was right before Warner Brothers. Yes.

And so there was big Superman energy lurking. And yeah, you just kind of held up your phone to me without comment and just showed me like the tweet. I think I was catatonic. I mean, there was a lot going on. You know, and we'll talk more about, like, the environment. But yes, you were, and you also were protecting your heart, I think at first.

Because when you first got the news, you didn't say to me, you know, I heard a rumor about this. You just kind of held it up. Someone was talking on stage. I didn't want to interrupt. No, I actually think it was still before. Was it? Yeah. I thought we had already seen one battle after another sequence when this happened. Maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't matter.

Maybe? I thought it was mid-presentation when I saw it. Okay. That's fine. Because you're, you know, living. This is the type of thing that you actually do remember detail for detail. That's a good point. Any meaningful interaction between us? Absolutely not. In the garbage. And then you did about 15 minutes later say to me, this person... I had heard this rumor. You know, anything. Any meaningful interaction between us? Absolutely not. No. In the garbage.

And then you did about 15 minutes later say to me, this person. I heard this rumor. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Oh, that someone reached out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone in the campus, I guess, is really funny because it actually is true. It's not just.

Right. And then we started getting texts from Ben and other people being like, is this for real? And then by that evening? Yeah. Let's just say I've accumulated more information about what this is. Um... It definitely seems like this movie is happening.

Now, David Fincher's laundry list of movies that never made it to the big screen or to the Netflix streaming service is pretty long. He is one of the development kings, and a lot of stuff has been scuttled over time. So, you know, this is not... I don't know if this is like a locked picture that is going into production in July.

But it seems like it is. Okay. Here's what I can say. Um... This probably should not be thought of as a sequel. Okay. It should be thought of as more of a follow-up that is connected to, but not the same as.

The example that was cited to me was, think about how The Big Sleep, the Raymond Chandler adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart, is in the same world as Farewell My Lovely, the 1975 Robert Mitchum movie, because they play the same character in that movie. But it's different actors, different directors, different time in the storyline.

It's... They're different. They're not really sequels. They are the further adventures of Philip Marlowe. So it's sort of extended cinematic universe. Yeah, in the parlance of our times, yes. So this will be like the further adventures of Cliff Booth, is my understanding of it. The only other important information that I have learned, that I think is confirmed,

is that the movie takes place in 1977. SONIA Okay. BRIAN Which is roughly eight years after the events of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, so a different time in Cliff Booth's life. SONIA Mm-hmm. BRIAN Unclear if Rick Dalton will be returning in this story. You know, what's been reported in the trades is that this is basically a version

of a restructuring something of the movie critic, which is the movie that Quentin Tarantino was thinking about directing as his 10th and final film. That movie, over time, it seems like became more of a Cliff movie and less of what it originally started out as. So, I don't totally know what this is gonna be. I assume you're excited about this. It seems fine to me. It seems great. I don't have a lot of the anxiety that other people do about...

I mean, sure, you know, we're going to talk all about how quote-unquote cinema's, you know, going into a trash can. But... I, like most David Fincher movies, I really enjoyed The Killer. I did too. I saw it on the theater screen, so that was fine for me. I don't have a physical media collection to worry about. I'm concerned about that part.

I know, you did bring this up within an hour. I'm just like, I will never have the 4K of this. Mank and the Killer are not available on physical media. That is... That's fucking bullshit. Do you think Fincher has like... He doesn't care. No, he doesn't care.

Yeah, I know. That's why Fincher is my guy. I just... I'm not saying he's not cool or even right. I am a loser. But it is something I want. So Fincher doing whatever the hell he wants and not caring is great with me. If it's okay with Quentin, if it's okay with Fincher, sure, make a good movie starring

Brad Pitt. Like, what do I care? I'm pretty much in the same boat. I don't have the same Netflix anxiety that a lot of people do. The truth is, is that in all likelihood, we will be able to see it on a big screen. Not everyone in America will be able to. But you know what? Things are changing. The IMAX, Narnia, Greta Gerwig circumstance with Netflix could portend a shift.

Meryl Streep is a lion? What's going on? I don't know. We can talk about that another time. I see. Aslan is a lion? Uh, yes. Chris mentioned this to us when we talk about that another time. I see. Aslan is a lion? Yes. Okay. Chris mentioned this to us when we talked about it some time ago.

I have read this book, but not since I was like seven. So yeah, it seems like this movie is happening. We'll talk about it a lot more and some of that Netflix stuff next week when I think we'll do maybe more of a like movies State of the Union and where things are at right now. Because it's connected to a larger discussion that we should have. I'll save the take. Save it.

It's not a good one, but save it. The one I was disappointed to be in Boston for was the One Battle After Another trailer. Yeah, we discussed it here on The Big Picture. You did. You cited it ever so briefly, and I'm sure that the listeners of the show were absolutely contented with the way that you discussed it. I said it was good. Well done. Uh, there's more to say about One Battle After Another now that we've seen even more from the film at CinemaCon.

So we can kind of table it until then. Needless to say, Paul Thomas Anderson, who cuts most of, if not all of his trailers, is arguably the greatest trailer cutter in the history of movies. And so, this one rocked. I have a lot of thoughts about what this movie could be and what's inspiring it. Where were you when the trailer dropped? Walking the streets of Boston with Bill and Chris. Okay. So are you guys like pull over to the side of the sidewalk?

No. Bill was showing us various haunts that he had visited over time, explaining like oyster shacks and clothing stores that had popped up or that were great in 1997. And he was going down memory lane. Yeah, but he's also a PTA enthusiast. He is. And a trailer enthusiast. So you become aware that the trailer- I waited till I got back to my room to watch it on a laptop. I didn't want to watch it on my phone.

Okay. Well, I guess the trailer gods respect that. Yeah. And I was home for one day between Las Vegas and Boston. And so in that one day, I think I watched the trailer on my large television five times. Okay. So I've seen it a lot. Did you watch that with your daughter or was that after bed now? No, there's a lot of machine guns in that trailer. I don't think that would be a good idea.

I discovered that when I watched the teaser in my son's bedroom. Jason's infinity. I was like, sorry. Yeah, there's a lot of machine guns in that trailer. I know. I discovered that when I watched the teaser in my son's bedroom. I was like, sorry! Yeah, that's a little loud. Yeah. Couldn't be more excited. The Avengers Doomsday casting announcement? I was on a plane when this happened. So I sort of became aware of this.

I just started seeing pictures of director's chairs. Yeah, that was it. And I was like, what's going on here? And then it was just a bunch of people that had been in Marvel movies in the past and were gonna be in one again. And then I logged back out. You pretty much summed it up. There's not really much to say.

They just showed director's chairs over the course of several hours that featured the names of actors who would appear in the upcoming Avengers movie. I think that this was the lowest I've felt about Marvel. I think that this was one of the most cynical, lame things that they've done. And we'll get to some of the Marvel stuff that we saw in Las Vegas. I didn't see it. Oh, that's right. I left.

That's right. You weren't there for Disney. I can tell you, Matt and I can tell you all about it. Um, it wasn't, It wasn't bad at all. I don't really have anything negative to say about it, but this was really sweaty and kind of desperate and weird to me. Yeah. And a little bit like we don't have it.

And it's because they know that they don't have it. Right now, culturally, they don't have it. And a lot of the things that we saw over the last few days, there's like a domino effect potentially in play here. If a couple things miss, where all of a sudden, what I suggested on the Black Panther pod, where I was like, I don't know, man, they got like one more chance here before this becomes no longer the most important thing about movie going.

So, we'll see, we'll talk about Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts in a moment too. The studio. This is a TV show? You watch TV? I've watched this show. And I'm not caught up because this is the show in our household where we like actually watch it together. Oh, that's nice. Which in my household is incredibly rare. Okay.

Because we don't... Is Zach not caught up on Emily in Paris? No. To his... It's his loss, you know? There's a whole Loro Piano plot line. Oh, yeah. Do you know about this? Definitely. Okay. Do you know what Loro Piano is? I do, yeah. Okay. Do you own any Loro Piano plotline. Do you know about this? Yeah, definitely. Okay. Do you know what Loro Piano is?

I do, yeah. Okay. Do you own any Loro Piano? Absolutely not. Okay. I was going to, like, you were really going to just jump a level in my respect. That's something I would have owned in 2013. Really?

Sure. Okay. When I cared about that kind of thing. All right. Well, I mean, then you would still have it and then I could be like, could I have it? And if you're not wearing it anymore. Was it extant in 2013? Yeah.

Okay. Um, I mean, I don't know the ownership structure at that time. I put you on the Emily in Paris pass. Sorry. That's not what I intended. You know, I just saw a goodie. We were talking about Marvel director chairs for like 25 minutes, you know? Finally, something I'm passionate about.

It was 72 seconds. Yeah. Um, what were we actually? Oh, the studio. Really good. Yeah. It's a great TV show. I recorded an episode of the Prestige TV podcast with Joanna and Bill about it. I really, really like it.

I also, I really like the episodes in the middle of the season quite a bit and I haven't watched past episode five, but for listeners of this show, if you are not familiar with it, you probably are, but if you're not, it's basically made for you. If you like this podcast, it is about the inner workings of a Hollywood studio and the executives who make movies and the daily emotional meltdown of IP and what we need to do to make money versus loving films and trying to get them made. I feel a little bit indicted by the show in a very nice way. I think people should watch it. It's a complete delight. Well made, great performances, you know, filmed on location. It's like real play. It's just wonderful.

Probably some Laura Piano on that. I would imagine the costuming is fantastic on the series. Couple of box office things, a statham is back. Yeah. A Working Man was the number one movie at the box office last weekend. This weekend, we shall see. Not a good year at the box office. We'll get into that soon. Snow White bombed.

Yeah. Rachel Zegler's political opinions were blamed for that in one of the lamest tarnishings of someone's reputation I've ever seen. Was really pathetic. Yeah. Very sad. I haven't seen the Snow White film my daughter has. She said, Dad, Snow White was beautiful. Yeah. She is beautiful. Yeah. I think she meant the experience of Snow White. Oh, that's right. That was also her review of Singing in the Rain. That was beautiful. Yeah. She is beautiful. Yeah. I think she meant the experience of Snow White.

Oh, that's right. That was also her review of Singing in the Rain. That was a beautiful movie. We're working on vocabularies. So adjectives, you know, it's a developing skill. I think that that's a really great way to describe. I want her to have beautiful experiences. Yes.

You know? She also felt that the Evil Queen was someone she didn't want to spend any time with. Okay. And her favorite dwarf is... Grumpy. Okay. Which I think checks out. Yeah, I was going to say based on what's surrounding her in her everyday life.

What do you mean? You know? That's not very nice. Coyote versus Acme sold to Ketchup Entertainment for $50 million. Listen, Ketchup Entertainment brought us good rich. Yep. So. What was the Robert Rodriguez Ben Affleck film

that they also brought us? Oh, I saw that in theaters. Yeah, what's that movie called? I don't remember. The Revisionist. Something like that. Reflections. Reviver.

So what, okay. Revolutions. Is it an insurance? No, the insurance is the accountant, sort of. Don't even try. What was it about? It's about a guy like imagining a kind of past and future for himself inside of this like technological corporate system.

Doesn't matter. It's not important. We'll get to it one day. Okay. I mean, I did see it. We talked about it. Hypnotic. Thank you to Craig Horbeck.

The film is called Hypnotic. Also the name of an absolutely disgusting La Courd drink. It was released in the 2000s. Hip-hop themed. You remember? No, I never tried that one. Hypnotic and Hennessy. Yes, no, I do that, but I didn't try it. Last thing. Jen Salke outed Amazon.

This feels like it happened 300 years ago. Especially she was not present at CinemaCon. Name was not mentioned. She oversaw all of film and television. Actually, if you listen to The Town, you can hear Matt Bellany talk about this in depth, her legacy as a filmmaker. We were talking about the Amazon film slates when we talked about The Handmaiden on 25 for 25,

because at that time, when she was not running the studio, they were making or acquiring a lot of really good movies. I would not say that Amazon MGM's movie output in the last six years, seven years, was really all that strong. Couple of hits here and there, couple of prestigious films, couple, you know, your women talkings, you know, your nickel boys, there still were some films that were quality, but they were few and far between.

New Leadership, we'll see what they do. We're going to talk about their slate a little bit here and on the town later. Let's talk about our trip to Vegas very briefly before we bring in Matt to also discuss that trip to Vegas. Right, because Matt and Craig, Producer Craig, you're back there, were very supportive. You know, I came in and this was my first ever trip to Las Vegas and I said, I really need a mom's night out energy from the three bros. And you mostly delivered.

I was present for you. We didn't go to a club. No, we went to industry parties. Yes. And you were you were feted as the queen that you are. Thank you. Yeah. No, we had fun. We stayed at Caesar's Palace, which is where the convention is. And you the one thing I want to discuss very briefly before Matt comes

in is we walked the casino floor together. Yeah. You'd never, have you ever been in a casino? I guess not. That's insane. Well, you know, I'd never been to Vegas before. I've never been to Atlantic City. So I tried to bully you in the casino. I mean, you did bully me. Like you actually, you marched me to the ATM.

I did. And you made me withdraw cash. Yeah. And then you were like... I wasn't holding a gun, just for the record. But like, you did actually just like march me there. And then you stood over my shoulder and were like, that's not enough. Why are you being a coward when I was withdrawing it? And also, obviously, the fee was like, you know, 45%.

It was very high. And then I was really outraged by that too. Craig was like, oh, I just brought $200 in cash to Vegas. Guys, I've never been, no one told me. That's not true, I did tell you, but okay. I said bring $200 to lose. That is what I told you before we went. And I said to you, which bore out, I don't want to lose $200.

That's not fun to me. So you bullied me, you were like, we'll go, we'll play blackjack. Because I like, do you know the basic rules of Blackjack, because my grandmother's boyfriend taught me. But he did, George. Very cool story, thank you, George. Thank you, George. Thanks for everything you do.

You said, we're gonna go, and then you made me withdraw cash, and then you walked the floor and you were like, well, tough news, the lowest minimum is $25. And you had really, you had said, maybe we'll find a 15, like maybe a 10. So 25, that's a 200 to three, I'm not going to do the math. That's a big increase. The minimums have gone up significantly over the last 20 years.

Okay. There are once upon a time there were $10 blackjack tables in Las Vegas. Right. They're long gone. I thought there might still be $20 tables, no $20 tables to be found. Only $25, $50, and $100 on that main center room in Caesars. And then I'll just, I mean, I just full body panicked. That is really stressful to me. I didn't want to do it.

You would not sit. You would not take any money out. You would not play. I did take the money out. You watched me play for 40 minutes and it was totally fine. It was totally fine. Nothing bad happened. But I was really stressed out the whole time.

And then I did take like a full hour after... Like, my heart rate didn't drop until... What? ...halfway through the next presentation. This is when we were joking the other day about how on the pod, I'm the neurotic one, but in real life, you're the neurotic one. Listen, I just... That was the most clear example of that I've seen in a while.

I know what I want. I know what I don't want. I know what I am comfortable with. I know what I am comfortable with. I know what I'm not comfortable with. And I just really, really didn't want to do that. And then... Did you learn anything sitting there watching? Sort of, but it made me more stressed. Because, you know, I do know the basic rules of Blackjack,

but then obviously, like I'd never played with a dealer before, and there are some of the casino rules, and then also with other players at the table, you have to sort of be aware of what's going on there, and I had no idea about that strategy. They speak very fast. They do. So it did kind of feel like there was a whole language that I didn't know. There is a very important communal aspect at the table because whatever cards you are receiving are impacting, obviously, everybody else sitting at the table.

So having to interact with others but not knowing the language is like my nightmare. You're at a minimum table, it's the middle of the day, everyone there is friendly. Actually, the guy sitting with us was, it was his first time in Vegas too. Yeah, but he had warmed up at Mandalay Bay. It was his 21st birthday trip. We had, it was a very nice dealer.

I wish I remembered her name. Temi, she was wonderful. She was from Los Angeles. Yeah, and we did a lot of LA talk and that like made me a little more comfortable. I do think it's both revealing and psychotic that like that situation is where you're most comfortable. I felt so calm. Yeah, you were just, and you were great.

And you won $6 total, but I thought that you did it. I basically punt all my earnings at the end. Great confidence. Yeah. Yeah, that didn't work out. No. But you're very comfortable in that situation. And then me being like, let's go to the club,

let's go to party. And you're just like, you know, stone-faced. Absolutely not true. And Matt can confirm that I was game for everything. Um, let's, let's, let's take a quick break and we'll bring in Matt Bellany to talk about the most exciting movies at CinemaCon, our time at a very special show and a lot more. Okay.

Flights on Air Canada. How about Prague? Ooh, Paris, those gardens. Gardens. Um, Amsterdam, Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has carnaval. Ooh, colorful.

You want colorful. Thailand! Lantern Festival? Boom! Book it. Um, how did we get to Thailand from Prague? Oh right! Prague! Oh boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada, nice travels. Okay, Matt Bellany, host of The Town. What is your title at Puck? I am a founding partner of Puck, which is a fancy way to say I was employee number one.

Okay, wow. Employee number one. Amazing. Obviously, you host an incredible show where you cover the inside stories of Hollywood. We were together in Las Vegas. It was special. For multiple days at CinemaCon. You're not supposed to go to Vegas for more than 48 hours.

Matt and I at least broke that rule by roughly 24 hours, almost 48 hours. Yeah, and honestly, like it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. Normally I'm just like, get me the hell out of here. But I had a great time. I think maybe because Amanda was there and it was your first time and I sort of felt like I got to relive Vegas through Your eyes Craig was there at Cinemacon for his first time. It was like we did fun stuff. We went to David Copperfield

Yeah, we got to talk about First of all, this was my idea you You guys were unwitting or willing participants, but this was my idea. I'd never seen him before. I love magic. I love Vegas. I thought it would be a cool half ironic thing to do. And I think we ended up enjoying it, question mark.

We had a fantastic time. I will also say you emailed us as soon as you found out we were going to be at Cinema Con and said, do you want to go see David Copperfield? And it was an instant yes from both of us. And in terms of like having a bit for the week, you know, anyone I spoke to, I would say, oh, it's my first week in my first time ever in Vegas, and I'm going to go see David Copperfield. And everyone was like, perfect.

You know, it really, you couldn't have scripted it better for me. And honestly, like, I was a little nervous, to be honest, because I started reading some... There's some Reddit activity about him. He'd been kind of quasi-cancelled and like, but not really, and maybe he lost his step. He is 68 years old. But we went, we, you know, there was magic.

There was an alien at one point. There was a spaceship. We had a front row seat. It was honestly the first 30 minutes of the show. I was like, this is actually legitimately good. It was typical Las Vegas illusionist work. You know, moving large objects, card tricks, popping balloons inside of balloons. They were like...

Predicting numbers, people reading people's heads. Again, another thing, for the first 30 minutes, you turned to me just with joy in your eyes. Vegas brings out your childlike wonder. Yeah, I did. I think I said I would die for magic to you. You did. Which I would.

You just kind of like a really excited golf clap, like kind of shrinking into yourself because you were so excited. No, I'm like that. I really like magic. I think it's fun to go see magic. The final 30 minutes with the alien, my take on it is when Steven Spielberg does that,

it's really cool and emotionally affecting. And when a magician in Las Vegas does it, it's fucking weird. It's kind of psychotic. It took, I mean, it was just an unexpected turn. And at some point, it takes a real turn. And for a while, I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who is going to go to Las Vegas and see David Copperfield, but I do want people to understand that it is an animatronic alien, highly reminiscent

of Baby Yoda, but with teeth. Right? And I think Baby Yoda doesn't have teeth. Blue is the name of this alien. Blue 42. BLU. BLU, yes. But about the same size as I understand Baby Yoda to be based on never having seen that show, but seeing that in his... And a quasi-surrogate for David Copperfield's absent father. Correct. We should say that.

Yes, that's why I make this Spielberg comparison. It is a deeply emotional backstory that is maybe not as true as I had thought it was going to be when he first started telling the story mid-show. Yeah, and not something that you expect in a magic show. deeply emotional backstory that is maybe not as true as I had thought it was going to be when he first started telling the story mid-show. Yeah, and not something that you expect in a magic show. No. Right. But he is, David Copperfield is having an extended,

scripted conversation with a small blue, baby Yoda-esque alien that can, I think, move its arms and head. And tentacles. And antenna. Right, and has, like like basically alien veneers, but also can't like walk, right? So then David Copperfield has to like carry him around the theater. And they embrace at one point. Yes. They do hug.

A couple times. If this sounds creepy, it's because it is creepy. It was a good time though. It's interspersed also with like quasi old footage of his father who was in the military and was stationed at Roswell. Right, but I don't actually think that was old footage because... It clearly was not. Yeah, well I know Matt after all was like maybe...

I thought maybe he was superimposed into old footage. You think he has that kind of VFX budget? Listen, I don't think... Based on what I saw of the various magic curtains that are all really grimy, I don't think they have the budget. You guys are really spoiling David Copperfield for all the fans. He has an island. He has a compound in Vegas.

He's been a successful magician for 30-something years now. He's putting that money elsewhere. Okay. But I did think that the actor who played his dad was very attractive. And looked like him. He did. Yeah, well, I think they spent some time casting it appropriately. Well, when they first showed that image of his parents,

I was like, God, his parents are hot. This is unbelievable how attractive these people are. Anyhow, nevertheless, we've spoiled most of the David Copperfield show in Las Vegas, I would say so. Big spoiler also, he has great hair. I don't know what he's doing. Is he? Wig or dye job or he went to Turkey.

For a 68-year-old man, there is a tremendous amount of hair on his head. It is a bouffant of hair. Thank you for bringing us. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. No, it was perfect. All week was a lot of fun. The Cinemacon in general, I think of it as two things. One, it is just like any old trade convention.

It is like if you are a member of like Plumbers United and all the plumbers of the world come to Las Vegas for four days. Stake dinner. Yes, eat mediocre food, hang out, have too many cocktails and sit through boring presentations. This is the same thing but for movies, but also it's a little... Except Ana de Armas is there. Yes, it's a little bit of movie nerd prom,

where a lot of people you know from the business are there, a lot of celebrities are there, and you get to see some stuff. You don't interact with the celebrities, though. You don't. I mean, that's true. Ananda Armist was walking the casino floor at one point. I saw her with my own two eyes. Very rare. That usually doesn't happen.

They know, like, Leo DiCaprio? He don't do that, yes. He was probably back at his pool by 4 PM. Yes. I remember a few years ago when I was there, I saw Lupita walking into a hallway, and I was like, good lord. Like, just a strikingly beautiful person.

And they'll do meet and greet and stuff, like private things. Someone asked if I wanted to meet the weekend, and I was like, I'm good. That would be an interesting podcast. We'll come back to the weekend. Anyhow, so it's this across three days, all the major studios present all of their wares and they, you know, hope that the theatrical exhibitors will care

and of course that they will, because theatrical exhibition is in a very complicated, some might say dire state. Matt, why don't you give us a little bit of a sense of how things are going in the business relative to this experience? Not great is a good way to describe it. I mean, box office is in the shitter right now. It's like 12.4% down for the year domestic. This was supposed to be the rebound year, survived till 25, last year was not great, although it did rebound by the end of the year. So last year was surprisingly decent.

Yes, it came back. There's just existential dread throughout, and there always is at this convention. As long as I've been going, it's always been about how they're under threat, streaming is killing their business, the collapsing windows are killing their business, COVID, all of it, everything is aligned against the theaters.

And that is even more so now, because as much as these studios are there to court these theater owners, they're also quietly undermining them. I mean, I did a panel with the head of Universal's distribution unit. And he was there saying, we are a theatrical first studio. We are there to put movies, we need to be profitable to put more money into movies, all of which is true. Yet they are a pioneer of putting their movies on premium video on demand as early as three

weeks after they're in theaters, which most people in the theater business believe is significantly hurting their business. after they're in theaters, which most people in the theater business believe is significantly hurting their business. Matthew 10 So that is, was basically the biggest topic of conversation this week. And I thought of something, I don't know if you've thought about this since it happened, but in 2017, Matt was actually on the big picture, talking about the movie War Machine on Netflix. Do you remember this? Pete O'Reilly Oh, yeah.

Matthew 10 It's a long time ago in our old office. Pete O'Reilly Oh, man. Yes. Matthew 10 You came on and we talked about the idea, really what windowing was and what it meant and what it meant for a studio like Netflix, which was just a streamer then, to make a movie like War Machine with Brad Pitt, who was one of the first major movie stars to basically make a streaming only movie. And we were saying like for a company like Netflix, what makes sense in terms

of when the movie should go? Listeners of the show can check that episode out. It's very weird. I think I interviewed David Michaud, the director of that movie. But back then, I don't know that I ever thought we would get to this place where after 17 days, a movie like Black Bag, which is a $50 million movie

with movie stars directed by Steven Soderbergh, is available in your home. But for Universal, that's actually good business right now financially. Oh, it's great, but it can be. For a movie like Wicked, he said on my panel, they made over $100 million on Peavod. And they believe that they made that money and did not hurt the theater business in the process.

But they don't share any of that money with movie theaters. No, they have their own taxes on that. You have to pay the distributors, but they keep more of the Peavod money than they do from the 50-50 or so split with the theater. So it's in the studio's interest to do these shorter windows. And in 2017, what we did not anticipate was COVID.

COVID completely opened the door for these studios to say, yeah, you know that 45-day, 90-day window we used to have that we've never liked, but you guys have been able to enforce on us, we're just not going to do that anymore. And here's the new model that we're going to all adhere to. And if you guys want it, great. If not, so what? Just like speculate for me, it seems like half of the studios would be open to a 45-day window.

Half would not, because they'd be leaving a lot of money on the table. Well, Adam Aaron at AMC claimed in an interview that he has half the studios, three, on board for a 45-day window guarantee. We can... We were speculating. We can guess. We know it's Disney. Disney already does that.

Right. It's probably Sony, because Tom Rothman is a big theaters guy, and they have a Netflix pay one deal that pays them a billion or so dollars a year. So they can do that with the cushion of knowing that they've got this money out there. And no streaming service that they need to feed. Right, exactly. They have no homegrown streaming service.

They probably could make more money on P-Vod, but the third one, I don't know who it is, and he wouldn't tell me when I asked. My guess is it's Paramount, but he's the third one I don't know who it is. And he wouldn't tell me when I asked. My guess is it's Paramount, but that's just a guess. But how can they even make any commitments now? Because Paramount has been sold. The new regime is coming in. Yeah, they make a commitment to him

and then they're doing whatever. Sure. But the funny thing is that the guy who instituted the Pivod strategy at Universal is going to be running Paramount, Jeff Shell. So, what's he gonna do? He's gonna implement his old strategy. So, they're probably not in.

And Warner Brothers, I mean, they've got serious cash concerns. Maybe they'd be on board, I don't know. I'd be very surprised if Universal, Warner Brothers, or Amazon agreed to that. That just doesn't seem like it benefits them right now. I mean, why would they? That's the fascinating thing. This was my first CinemaCon. I'm not surprised if Universal, Warner Brothers, or Amazon agreed to that. That just doesn't seem like it benefits them right now. Yeah, I mean, why would they? That's the fascinating thing. This was my first CinemaCon.

And the tension between these two separate, but conjoined industries that need each other. But also it is just the studios holding the theater owners hostage. Yeah, pretty much. And they're presenting and on stage being like, you're gonna love it, here's everything that we're giving to you. In your theaters, we value your theaters.

The theaters don't have any other choices. It's just kind of like, this is what you're gonna show it or I guess you're not gonna show it, but what else is gonna fill your. And that's what the theaters say. When they start talking about why their business is so bad, they talk about volume. And they believe that if the volume of Hollywood movies increased to back where it was pre

COVID, that their business will be fine. Their business will be growing. Set aside the fact that attendance had been going down, down, down even before COVID. So it's not like they were a growing business, but they've raised prices. They've done all the concession stuff they've done and they have, you know, adds up the wazoo before they're aware ways that they can make money if people are showing up. And it's just that there's not enough movies in their view. Yeah, that's the thing is, and that relates to the movies that were presented to us.

They've been able to backstop by raising prices and creating more experiences inside of movie theaters. I honestly think it's smart. I don't think it's a bad idea at all. I think Booze is a good idea. Yeah, it's a great idea. And it mostly works. And so the theatrical experience, to me, is not really going anywhere anytime soon.

It's just the scale may go significantly down. But a lot of these presentations... You know, some of these studios have like five, six, seven movies this year. I mean, going back to ten years ago, when they would have 12, 14, 18, 24. Right. So those theater owners are right. Like there's just fewer movies to present. There's fewer movies for us to talk about, to be excited about.

And they've made a lot of big bets and not a lot of middle bets because the middle bets are harder to market now. So I would say a very, very mixed bag in terms of what we saw. Like, definitely a few things that would get the hardcore movie fans excited, a few things that would get the hardcore IP fans excited, but not the most rousing slate overall. Would you agree with that? SHANNON COFFEY Absolutely.

Not a lot of sure bets in terms of butts in seats, which is everyone else at the convention's goal. A few things that we as movie nerds were really excited to see. A lot of movie stars that I was thrilled to see. Thank you all for coming. Legit major heavyweight star. Yeah, I heard a little, ooh, when Glenn Powell came out.

I was like, oh. Yeah, you know, and I knew he was coming. He was announced because Glenn Powell works very hard and shows up at everything. God bless Glenn Powell, but like, Leo and Tom Cruise was coming. He was announced because Glenn Powell works very hard and shows up at everything. God bless Glenn Powell, but like Leo and Tom Cruise were there. You know what I mean? Like this is a major, major, major event still in the business. So, but there were a few things that we're excited about. Worrying that the things that you and I are excited about as movie nerds

and the things that seem like Schwerbet's are, you know, do not overlap in the Venn diagram. I totally agree. I mean, that's the thing. The big movies that I think the studios are presenting to us, the sort of the linchpin film, the most important film that they all had, I don't know if any of them, save maybe one, made any of our lists in terms of what we're anticipating. No, but I will say that the one, I don't know if we want to talk about the movies yet, but I actually am more interested in the Jurassic World movie now than I was before.

That trailer was good. It was scary. My only problem with that movie is, which stars Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, they were both there. They were. Gareth Edwards, the director of Road 1 was there. I saw Mahershala in the lobby that morning. Okay.

Yeah. Then we'll talk about him when he is like, this is another universal property. To me, every Fast and the Furious movie is the same and every Jurassic World movie is the same. And they're not necessarily bad, I think the Fast and Furious movies are much worse, but they're just, there's a big dinosaur, there's a dinosaur we've never heard of,

there are children in peril, and then there's one plucky person who needs to save everyone and one dorky scientist. Like that's, it is, they're formulaic. It's probably gonna be a better made movie because the director is really talented. The creator is like legitimately one of the best looking science fiction movies in the last ten years.

But I'm not like crawling out of my skin to see it. You just described every movie though. Like every heist movie, it's like a crew's gotta get together to steal him. Like every rom-com, are they gonna get together? Like, yes they are. I don't mind the formula. In fact, sometimes I'm very comforted by it. So I'm with Matt, I was more excited by the trailer.

I was open to it. I didn't think their banter worked that much, but that's... Oh, on stage they were a little awkward. Yeah. And it's always funny how it comes back to Scarlett being a badass and like demanding a lot. Yes. There were multiple references to her contract

and like what she will and won't do and I know she's famously as like you know hard charging. Yeah she ended up suing Disney and all that stuff but uh they I don't know that hopefully their chemistry in the movie is better. She looked she looked exciting in the movie and like so I'm open to it. You know that so that's from Universal. Universal kind of had a double barrel. They had two of the biggest movies that they were pushing. Jurassic is in July, on July 4th weekend. Then they have Wicked Part 2. Actually, I had to leave before the Wicked Part 2 presentation.

I wasn't going to say that on the podcast. I covered for you. And I covered for you at the Universal party afterwards. A dear friend lives in Las Vegas. We've known each other since fourth grade. I had to see the man, you know? That's, it's that simple. Matt and I stayed.

Uh, Cynthia and- Cause we care about cinema. Yes, you do. Yeah. Cynthia and Ari were there, but they did not sing. Okay. Which- They did hold hands.

They held hands and they- Did they save space? Yeah. They made even jokes about it. I think, you know, they're good at what they do. They, they sold what they needed to sell. And then they showed a trailer, which I thought looked fine. Yeah.

I mean, the problem Universal has with Wicked 2 is that it doesn't have that signature song. So the entire campaign for the first movie was built around that song, which is interesting because it's the last five minutes of the movie, so you're essentially giving that away. But they knew what they had, they knew everyone loves that song and it worked. It worked. So what do they have this time? They have more Wizard of Oz stuff, which we saw, but they don't have that signature song. So it's ultimately, so that's, I think why they didn't sing because they didn't

want people to be like, oh, well, that's not defying gravity. Interesting. Um, well, I'm not really excited about Wicked Part 2 at all. So, um. Nor am I, but it'll make money. It'll make money. Other movies that were not hyping, per se, but were hyped, we'll talk in depth on the town about the Superman presentation.

Oh, I have thoughts. Um, but Superman was obviously the centerpiece of the Warner Brothers presentation, which ultimately I thought was better than I was expecting on the whole in terms of the movies that they showed, but there was a lot of time devoted to Superman. Maybe not a lot of time well spent in that presentation. The footage that we saw honestly dimmed my enthusiasm for the movie a little bit. Me too. But I will say that I talked to a lot of people. It was the one movie that sparked a lot of conversation. I think for my world, because there's so much writing on it, like the whole reinvention of the DC universe, the embattled heads of the studio sort of need this to work and

DC of it all, but it's a weird mix. It's this weird mix of earnest Superman with silly dog, with kind of the irreverent robots. And there's like, there's a monster, there's a Godzilla monster in it that we don't know how much is going to be in the movie. It just looked like a very overloaded premise. And, you know, James Gunn was there with Peter Safran and the cast and he talked about this desire to create like, you know, more silver age feeling Superman, like your old fashioned style, hopeful Superman movie with lots of characters and a kind of shiny, zaniness surrounding this, you know, embodiment of hope.

I'm a little nervous about it. Yeah. Well, I am allergic to the James Gunn formula, which is sort of zany quippiness with, like, animals and then a lot of sentimentality. And it definitely fits the formula. And that formula has worked in many other movies. For three straight Guardians movies. animals and then a lot of sentimentality. And it definitely fits the formula. And that formula has worked in many other movies. So does it work when it's applied to Superman,

is the thing that all of you super, you know, super heroes can talk about. Chris Pratt sells that really well. He does, that's exactly what I said. He's so right for that James Gunn tone. Will David Cornsworth be right for that? Or maybe Rachel Brosnahan, who is better at that kind of stuff, and was very fun and I'd love her. But I don't know that Superman fits that. We're gonna find out. Let's talk about Sony. They presented three films, four films that

are coming out in three years. That was their big announcement, which we already knew that they're going to be... But they're coming out in the same month in three years. Four Beatles movies. It sounds like one per week. I would bet that. I would say they're going to do one every Friday for a month. Now, they have not said that. It could be they all drop on the same day, which seems very bizarre for theaters because then you got to choose. But even if these movies are sequential for a month, if the first one's a huge hit, the second one's gonna be competing with the first one for those theaters. And then after that, or if it's not a hit,

then you've got a horizon situation times four, where you've gotta put these movies in theaters after nobody wants to see them. It's a huge gamble. Sam Mendes is the director. You'll talk a little bit more when we get into anticipated how you feel about the casting of these movies. Which of these do you think comes first in the pecking order?

Which beetle gets his first movie? Well, I assume that they'll do it chrono... I hope they'll do it chronologically, but maybe they won't. Maybe they'll release it. Yeah, one assumes. So, you probably have to start with John or Paul, right? And also in terms of if you're trying to fight the problem that Matt is describing,

you wanna bring someone in with John and Paul, and then you gotta close with the other. No disrespect to Ringo or George. I would say we know which one is not first. Yeah. Yeah. I agree, it feels like Paul first, John last, right? I mean, I would think so. Oh, I don't know.

You think Paul last? There's speculation that they will tell the story of the Beatles sequentially, meaning the Paul story will be the first five, four or five years, rise to fame, that kind of thing. And then they bring the other stuff in so that, you know, John's movie is about his relationship with Yoko and his death, ultimately.

And then Ringo means, like, the aftermath and the breakup, so it's sort of told through his perspective. That makes sense to me. Okay. Maybe they'll jump around, or maybe it'll be the same story, but just from different perspectives. I don't know. You could see it being Paul to start getting the band together, perspectives, I don't know.

You could see it being Paul to start getting the band together. George, disillusionment and breakup and resentment and all that stuff. No offense to George, but he was mad. And then, and then, and then John, I mean, they'll all feature in all of them. Right? So John afterwards, death. Do you have three years of podcasting in you about this? Actually four, when you include the awards run. Like, this is gonna go through March of 2029.

You and I uniquely do, but I did also think to myself, I was like, I will be 43 years old when these movies come out. It's just, nobody wants it. Nobody wants to hear from a 43-year-old mom for five years straight about The Beatles. I just hope Paul is still alive so he can promote it. Oh, my gosh.

The other Sony announcements that were also big were that Sony... Sorry, Spider-Man Beyond the Spider-Verse is coming in 2027, which is a long ways away from that last... That movie was supposed to come out last year. Yes. And that Spider-Man Brand New Day, which is the new Tom Holland live-action Spider-Man movie, is coming next year, which is really soon That's that movie supposed to come out July 24th. I think next year. They haven't started filming Tom Holland is in Greece making the Odyssey right now

Hmm, that's not usually a good sign. We'll see what happens with well, although they did it with Jurassic for this summer They did it film that last summer So maybe if Tom Holland goes directly from Odyssey to Spider-Man, they can pull it off. Earning that paycheck. Lionsgate, not a ton of huge announcements. The biggest one was probably that... How dare you? Ballerina, are you kidding me? Well, we knew that was coming.

I know, but the footage was good. The fights were good. Was the footage good or was the fight good? The footage was the fight. It was essentially a long fight scene. Now, I say this, and I don't know if we're stepping on our picks, but like, I say this as someone who has not ever watched a John Wick movie. So I'm not the best person to evaluate the spinoff.

But I thought it was great. The fight scene was very good that they showed. They used that fight scene to then also announce simultaneously, John Wick 5 is in development right now. I assume it sounds like Keanu and Chad Stahelski will come back. Plus an animated John Wick prequel is happening. Yeah, I don't understand that. A spin-off of the Kane character from the last film is also going to happen

with Donnie Yen. Plus it looks like there's a lot more of Keanu in Ballerina than we may have initially thought. Yes. My understanding is, is they had to reshoot a lot of that movie. So they added a lot of stuff. We shall see. Paramount. Let's just, let's just table Paramount because we have, they have a couple of big titles and we'll focus on those when we do our picks. The big movie out of Amazon was Masters of the Universe, which is a 2026 movie.

That's, that's to everyone else who showed up at the Amazon presentation. The disrespect to Ryan Gosling right there. Well, I'm trying to hold it. That's what I actually gassed, by the way. I'm trying to hold it for both of your sakes and for my sake as well. Masters of the Masters of the Universe is of course He-Man, which five-year-old me was very emotionally invested in. And they very smartly included audio clips from the original TV cartoon of him saying,

I have the power. By the power of Grayskull, I am Nicholas Galatine. I'm just gonna be totally honest with you guys. I'm in. Oh no. Oh no. That's good, that was for you. There was, so we mostly observed from the press section

and also in the press section, there was a group of about 10 to 15, mostly young men. I didn't speak to them. They seemed to be about 25. And they were hooting and hollering for this movie and for the SpongeBob movie and for kind of all the fan IP stuff. There was a generational divide in the press area. Yeah, but this did seem to work for them. It's Travis Knight, Phil Knight's son, who's directed a lot of like animated films. Honestly, his animated features are quite good. We'll see. This is a Transformers movie that you also liked. Bumblebee is solid.

I thought he didn't he do? He didn't do the most recent animated one. Oh, he didn't. No, no, no. No, no, not animated. I thought he did the one with Anthony Ramos. Yes, Bumblebee, yes. No, Bumblebee was the one with Hailey Steinfeld. No, he didn't do, no, that was-

The one last summer that was actually pretty good. I did like that one too, but that one is not him. That's the guy who directed Creed 2, whose name is- Oh, Cable. Steven Cable. Yeah, but that one is not him. That's the guy who directed Creed 2, whose name is... Oh, Cable. Stephen Cable. Yeah, Stephen Cable. Thank you. He... He's very good at directing things like Transformers, which sounds like a stupid thing to say.

And this movie, I think, is for a very particular type of fan. But the thing that I thought looked cool about it was, practical sets, practical costumes, they're like carving stuff. It's not, it wasn't a CGI green screen mess. Interesting experiment in 2026. Can we rate a set visit for you just to go carve? I would have fun. What would you like to see them carve? Well, they're clearly carving Skeletor's face, which I'm just delighted about.

All right. I don't get it. I honestly, I don't get him. He looks like an 80s villain. I'm a little dubious of him. I agree. Nicholas Galveston, we'll see. I've never bought it. I mean, they showed a lot of footage of him working out, so he's trying. The ice video had him literally pumping iron. And he has definitely expanded to fill the contours

of the He-Man costume, but I hope he's healthy. Craig, what are your thoughts on that bulking? It's a little swollen, he needs some time to cut, in my opinion. Yeah. Um, okay. In addition to that, we had a very brief presentation by Neon where they just showed two trailers to two upcoming movies. I actually didn't go to that one.

It was at the beginning of the Lionsgate presentation. So their... Oh, I showed up. I thought I saw all of Lionsgate, but I didn't see Neon. Their president of distribution came out at the very beginning Tuesday morning and showed the trailer for Life of Chuck, which is the new Mike Flanagan movie that won the audience award at TIFF last fall, and then also Together, which was probably the breakout at Sundance this year.

Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who are a real life couple in a horror movie. I thought that trailer was really good. So... Love Dave Franco. He's very funny. He made another appearance at CinemaCon that was very funny. Um... And then the last studio that we should talk about is Disney. They have, they had a lot of big movies.

Some of them we'll talk about in our, um, in our most anticipated. The one that got the loudest cheers was Fantastic Four First Steps, which is their big July Marvel tent pole things in Marvel land are obviously very bad right now. Um, Brave New World did very poorly. their big July Marvel tent pole things in Marvel land are obviously very bad right now. Brave New World did very poorly. They've got Thunderbolts before Fantastic Four, which I thought looked pretty fun.

Sure. Okay. I mean, I'm not a Marvel person, so I look at these things and it's a little bit of speaking foreign language to me, but it looked like a Suicide Squad ripoff. It is very Suicide Squad-y. And very Guardians, kind of bumbling superheroes.

Yes, not as much your flavor. Not my flavor. I did see that they pretended to lead Wyatt Russell in from the casino floor. Yes, he was fake drunk and had lost thousands of dollars at the tables, even though he seems like an incredibly even-killed-nice guy. First first steps made noise because we saw Silver Surfer, Julia Garner's Silver Surfer in the movie.

And those 25-year-old men you're describing were very, very excited. Very excited. I was at home at this point because of childcare, but our group chat with the Ringerverse crew, really, like, I saw a lot of mentions of Silver Surfer just from afar. And that footage has not been made public yet?

It has not. Okay. And Silver Surfer, who is the herald for Galactus, the world-eating giant that is in the movie, is an important character. Oh, wow. Okay. Is it worlds or universes? Planets.

Oh, okay. Galactus eats planets. So he will be the big threat. The movie has a very retro futuristic style I have been dubious of this from the first image that I saw. I'm still pretty dubious of it I got an Incredibles vibe from it. Yeah, I think that's right The Incredibles I think is very closely modeled on the original Fantastic Four. So I think that makes sense I think this movie's gonna be a big hit so I'm not trying to like undermine that aspect Disney clearly cares about it the most yes. Yes, I mean Feige introduced it

You know, they they have been putting I think their most important marketing stuff behind it It looks more interesting than Thunderbolts to me. It's definitely more high stakes I just I have my doubts on the look and the storytelling style that they're going for, but that may just be personal taste. And in terms of actors, like Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are, I think, a step above the Thunderbolts crew. No disrespect to Forrest Pugh, but like at least Pedro Pascal people think is a star. Yes. This will be an interesting test of that theory. You know, this is not a Mandalorian helmet or a Last of Us situation. This is a real, like, he's got to carry this movie

as Mr. Fantastic. And he has materialists this summer too. So he's really, he's gonna be a human being with his face on camera in two movies. And how much do we think the mustache will help or hurt that effort? Is he a human as a Fantastic Four? He is a human.

He's been affected by materials in space that have transformed him into a man who can stretch his arms and legs and body and maybe other aspects. And mustache. And mustache. So he's like a mutant. He's not a mutant. Okay.

We'll discuss that later. Are you a comic book person? No. Well, I don't know. You seem to know that he was a human being. I mean, I know the basics of like the Marvel business and I know just enough about all the movies to try to... Yeah, I mean, you have a child who's older than your children.

Yeah, I'm not anti. Like, I see the ones that are popular. I like the, you know, the big, like, Joker I thought was great. And I see some of the Marvel standalone, Guardians I thought was really fun. But like, I don't know the lore. Okay. Like, that just went right over my head.

This movie, in theory, you don't have to know the lore for because they're introducing all these characters for the first time. That's another reason why it's fairly important. Other quick Disney stuff that we saw, you know, obviously a lot of kids fare that we won't spend too much time on, but Zootopia 2 is a pretty big movie. I'm curious if it will have a similar Moana effect because that's a movie that was pretty popular when it was released, but has had an incredible lifespan on Disney plus and a lot of kids have seen it in the...

It's gotta be, is it seven or eight years since Utopia? I believe that was 2015. Wow, ten years. 2016. 2016, so nine years since the original film. It's been over two decades since Lilo and Stitch came out. That's the one I don't understand. Craig is like, this is gonna be huge, everyone loves this.

I think so as well. It is not for my generation. I think so as well. It is not for my generation. I think it looks stupid. I think that Stitch looks inane. Why do people love this? I'm in a private, basically movie fantasy league, and most of the people, and this league includes producers,

writers, directors, podcasters, the whole nine, people who spend all their time thinking about this stuff, most of us took Lilo and Stitch, because we think this is gonna be a big hit. In our draft on the town, Lucas took it, and I was not interested in taking it at all. I think he's probably gonna win on that one. It's just, it's a similar thing to Inside Out to me,

where young millennials and Gen Z grew up with this movie. I did not, I did not. Even older millennials, I think I saw it in theaters. Did you? Yeah. Oh, interesting. I also just want to say, David Copperfield's animatronic Alien, not unlike the real life Lilo.

No. Good point. Or is it Stitch? Stitch. No, it's Stitch. Lilo is the girl. Sorry. Freakier Friday, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lange show their faces.

Another franchise that has passed me by. That is not relevant to me at all. This was the one thing I saw where I was like, oh, I wish I'd stayed to see them in person. I think this movie's gonna work in theaters. I think people are gonna see it. I think that there's a real untapped female market for this movie that's gonna do very well.

You're probably right. The Disney certainly thinks so. They, people I've talked to there said this is going to work. I don't know. The, is the Lohan Renaissance real? It's one thing to watch a Christmas movie on Netflix. It's another to go to theaters. Weirdly, Jamie Lee Curtis has gotten more famous since the original Freaky Friday. Yeah, she won an Oscar.

She won an Oscar. She's like kind of the, the grand dom of Hollywood right now. It's very weird. Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis in Freakier Friday. I do also think this is like for my generation, but then also people younger than me. It almost has like this... This is a huge movie for my wife.

And you get the sense that Jamie Lee Curtis is doing this as a favor to Lindsay Lohan. I mean, she's been steadily making that Netflix comeback for the last few years. Those movies have done very well for Netflix. The Irish Wishes of the World. I know you love that one. Um... That's Garbage Christmas.

I think. Or do we make it Garbage Women? Garbage St. Patrick's Day. What did you think of the actual footage they showed? I thought it was bad. I thought it was painful. I thought it looked really bad. I think the movie itself. Like the worst kind of body-switch switching humor and like, it's just bad. Very awkward, not very...

The original film is like pretty slick, actually. It's pretty well made. This one did not look good. I think movies like that, the switch from film to digital has really hurt them. They just look cheaper. They look like more disposable. Yes. You don't... That's not always true. Like when you're watching a David Fincher movie on digital, you're like, I was a real artist who knows how to use this.

When you just shift a cheap-ish comedy into that format, you can tell and you can feel it, and it feels less than, but we'll see. You can blurb that. Sean Financey, Freakier Friday is not David Fincher. You're welcome, Disney. A24 and Apple did not present. We did see one Apple movie,

which is being distributed by Warner Brothers. We'll get to that momentarily. Any other notes quickly? And Eddie Q is there. We don't have to talk about it on this podcast. Eddie Q is there. You can give us more insight into that on the town. Anticipated. Matt, you've got your number four as my number five.

Let's just talk about it now. Oh, we're going to our list. Yeah, let's go to our list. We each chose five. I want to talk about this one first, because it's in close succession with Disney. It's Avatar Fire and Ash. This is the third Avatar film,

the first since The Way of Water, which made over a billion dollars, and once again, two billion dollars, was nominated for Best Picture. James Cameron was doubted. He again proved the universe wrong, that he is in fact in total control. Even I, a certified James Cameron religious believer, was like, third one? It's only been a few years since the last one. I honestly thought the footage was

amazing. Did they give you 3D glasses to put on? It was 3D glasses. Yes. We had 3D glasses for two different presentations. It's the same style. You see everything. It's like spatial, like when they're flying around, you're seeing people falling off the creatures, like, it's all there. It was, they introduced two new Navi characters, the Ash people and the Wind Traders. Um, this is clearly like an intersectional war.

Um, it's just the actual filmmaking that he is doing, there's just not anything else that looks even close to this. It's amazing. Fifteen years into the 3D revolution where you could actually have stuff in 3D for narrative features, no one else is doing it like this. He's the only person who makes it look like that. How is that possible?

I don't know. It's very strange. Obviously, these movies cost an incredible amount of money and they've developed these extraordinary technologies. Some people just don't like the Avatar story. I'm not going to be able to convince people. Yeah, that was my one criticism of the footage. Like, I don't know how many new people they're bringing into the tent with this movie.

And I was a little confused by the new character. It almost looked like Zoe Saldana wearing a costume or something, her character. But it looked great. And there is a new visual palette to them. The last one was very much underwater and had all those creatures. This one does have fire and there's like a more earthy color to it. It's reds and browns.

And yeah, it honestly looked amazing. Listen, they're always really good. We go, we're just like, wow, can't believe you did that. Happily spent three and a half hours. Yeah, you're not worried this one's supposed to be longer than the last one? We were very worried about two and then it made literally $2 billion. And then, you know, it makes the money. Then we never talked about them until the last one? We were very worried about two and then it made literally two billion dollars. And then, you know, it makes the money, then we never talk about them till the next one. But it's fine.

It's interesting for this one to come three years later. That's pretty fast in the James Cameron timeline over the last 25 years. Although it was supposed to be two. I think they delayed it a year. Right, right. And honestly, whether or not Four and Five happened, which is planned and suggested, but if this, let's say this movie makes $1.2 billion, which would still be an incredible success, but would not come close to the first two movies.

Is there a fourth movie? I don't know. Oh, I think there is, but the question is whether Cameron directs it. Directs it, yeah. We'll see. He's getting up there. Okay. Amanda, what's your number five?

My number five is really very comparable to Avatar Fire and Ash. Uh, it's Megan 2.0. This worked for me. This was part, this is a Universal movie, and so it was part of the Universal presentation, which involved a live orchestra. Mm-hmm. And so, I think I was probably the only person in the room who was fully on board with all the aspects of this,

but they did have like 30 Megans come out on stage and dance to Oops I Did It Again, the Britney Spears song that is a part of the trailer, while the orchestra played Oops I Did It Again. And I said yes. I said I am a 40-year-old woman here watching these people gyrate kind of creepily, kind of funnily to one of the most important songs of my generation. Then Craig and I met two of the Megans at the party.

And I forced you to take a picture of them. Yeah, we did. And it's a good photo. I put it on Instagram. Oh, you did? Oh, I have to like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were, those two Megans were committed to the bit.

I don't know. I thought the first one was funny. I chuckled at the trailer. Allison Williams is like in on the joke and I think that works. But it is a tried and tested formula for a sequel. You know, that robot... Make the villain the hero. It's T2. It's Terminator 2. I said this on a podcast three months ago and I was mocked and I will not be mocked now. It's doing T2. Yeah. It's just, is that new villain as interesting as the T1000? We... Well, that's a high bar.

Speaking of James Cameron. Probably not that high. But this is a June movie. I thought it looked fun, too. Yeah. Okay, so I already gave your four. Your number five. You want to lay out again for Ballerina? You know? I thought it looked cool. Yeah. I mean, so sue me.

I think Honored Arm is kicking ass for two hours is worth paying for. I'm, the problem I have is that I have not seen the others. So I should probably spend the next two months doing that. Were you gonna see Ballerina? Yeah. Just for the pod or are you gonna see it with your heart? Uh, I'll see it with half my heart. You know who's going to see it?

Craig. Oh, I was going to say, I was like, your daughter made that for Tom Ballerina. I was like, I have some notes. No, on your arm, it's Craig's favorite. But I think your knowledge of some of the production troubles is tainting your view. I think you're right. I think you're right. I know a little bit too much. And I try to put that aside, because I mean, we both know that

many great movies have had troubled paths to the screen. Hundred percent. Honestly, what they did, and at least the rumor that Chad Stahelski, who has directed all of the John Wick movies, came in to do some fight choreography and amp up the action sequences, that's only good. I mean, he's just amazing at that. I would say in the extended universe of IP franchises that have come along in the last 25 years, John Wick is in a fairly holy place. It's really, really good.

If this movie isn't good, it taints that a little bit, but if it is, I'll celebrate it. I like her as an action star also. She was the best part of No Time Today. We were... Oh, really? Oh, you don't think so? I thought she was fine, but that whole segment It was the best part of No Time to Die. We were... Oh, really? Oh, don't you don't think so?

I thought she was fine, but that whole segment where he goes to Mexico was a little bizarre. Like, they could have cut that out of the movie and not... Totally, but also... I think it would have been a way less fun movie without that part though. It would have been very serious and it felt like they were like, oh shit, we need something fun to happen here.

Yeah. I don't know, I was like, why isn't the movie more like that? Why don't we cut Robbie Malick out of this? You know, but that's my opinion. Okay, my number four is The Running Man. This was one of the big presentations at Paramount and seemingly is an important movie for them. It's coming out in November.

It's directed by Edgar Wright, starring Glenn Powell. It is an adaptation of Stephen King's story, which was once an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Famously, you've never seen the original? I've seen it. I like it fine. Schwarzenegger movie. taking over for Richard Dawson as the host of the game show is Coleman Domingo, who is also there, who is... I think a good pick. He was great. I mean, he was great on stage also. He was great on stage. He looks great in the trailer. I thought this trailer was excellent.

Edgar Wright obviously born to do crazy action sequences that have a kind of winking sensibility. You know, this is a big one for Glenn Powell too. Do you think this is a serious action movie, or do you think it is a winking action movie? Because I couldn't quite tell from the trailer. I think, ultimately, the former, but with a lot of the latter mixed in.

I think because the stakes are really high and there's a lot of really grisly death in the movie. Right, I was surprised by how gory it was. It looks like it's going to be very gory. Maybe a little too gory for you? It's just, his winking gun thing is a little... I let it slide in John Wick because there's so much other, but I'm bummed out by it.

Yeah, it's gonna be very, very violent, but... Craig was super into this. Like, this is... and he doesn't even know the original. I'm in the tank for Edgar. I really like his movies, but I thought it looked, even by his standards, like really kinetic and fast-moving and exciting. So I'm going with that one. I do know the original, Matt. That's why I was excited. I won't let you slander me on this show.

Oh, I didn't know you knew the original. Yeah, we did the rewatchables on it. Oh, okay. I apologize. I mean, it looks way different and more exciting than the original, right, Craig? It does, yes. Okay. And he's, and Craig is officially a Glenn Powell fan. Yes, yes. And he's, you know, he is slowly maturing

into what we always thought could happen. Yeah. Hold it. I believe in my stack. Yeah, we never sell. We never sell, Glenn. Number four, Amanda. After the hunt. Luca Guadagnino back after you all disrespected him. That's fine. He was in the room. Iowa Deveree was in the room.

Andrew Garfield was in the room wearing a new piece of jewelry, but I could see it from it was not the pendant, but it was a gold chain that I could see from the back of the press. You think he hit the David Yermann store at the forum shop? I hope so. Yeah. Well, I hope he has a sponsorship. Come on.

He's doing good work. Good point. Julia Roberts, the star of the movie was not in attendance. She was not. But she was in the trailer and she does her signature Julia laugh while wearing clothes that were alarmingly similar to what I was wearing at the time of the presentation, which is just like the pants were not the same, but like way too close for comfort. Obviously, she looks much better in them than I do. Listen, I'm in on this.

Really? One of my favorite... Listen, I love him. He's one of my favorites. The actual movie, doesn't it look like a poor man's tar? Sure, but I would love to. That sounds like one of the best movies of 2025. I know, okay. But the politics of it seem weird. It's a little tired. Oh, political correctness, gone amuck. And who's really the victim here, you got to really nail that to pull that off. So it was a blacklist script that was written at a time when

campus culture, cancel culture, that those things had a different energy than they have say right now. Um, I'll just say from like a filmmaking perspective, I think it's the only movie that we saw aside from the PTA movie that was shot on film and you could tell watching it. It just looked different on that big screen. Obviously, Luca is an incredibly talented filmmaker. Politically, whether it hits or not,

it's kind of important to the movie's success. It's the whole movie! Yeah, well, I mean, it's 90% of the movie. The other half is Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, and I would agree, so I'm open to it. It's fine. I'm excited. Open mind, but I was a little bit of an eye roller at some of the... It also has a little

bit of vibe of Disclosure. Remember that movie? The Demi Moore where it's like, oh, we're going to do the sexual harassment movie, but we're going to make it about the woman as the harasser. If you get a little bit of that here. Yeah. We'll have to wait and find out. That is an Amazon MGM movie, right? Yes. And that's coming out in October. I'm cheating on my number three.

I've chosen two films. Okay. One of those films is an honorable mention from Matt. I'm very, very, very cautiously getting interested in Deliver Me From Nowhere. Now, I hate biopics. I hate music biopics. Oh, really? Why? Yes. Because I think they like just boil everything down to the barest essentials and have no nuance about what an artist's life is like, and I don't like them. I do like hearing great

songs loud in a movie theater. Everybody else does too. This is very soon after A Complete Unknown. For this movie to come along, Bruce Springsteen obviously walked the path that Bob Dylan carved in the American post-folk movement. This movie stars Jeremy Allen White. It's directed by Scott Cooper, whose movies I don't always love, to be honest with you. It's about a very specific time in Bruce Springsteen's career when he was getting ready to write and record the album Nebraska. Jeremy Strong also stars as John Landau, his manager slash guru. Um, I would like for this movie to be great. I was like literally in real time, like from one second to another, it was like, oh no, oh yes, oh no, oh yes.

The performances were cool. It looked like, he looked right? Mmm, that was my big problem with the footage. On stage, when they're showing him with E Street, I thought he looked right. Yes, but off stage, they don't even make any effort to make him physically look like him. And I know that shouldn't matter, and it's not a caricature,

but it kind of did matter to me. I was like, oh, that's the guy from the bear. Like, it's so weird. Like, you wouldn't, you would almost not even know it was a Springsteen thing until the music kicks in. And like, I don't know, that part of it was weird to me. I know, that actually makes me more interested in the movie that it's not just like, you know, glory days for three hours.

Like, that's actually not what I want to see, but that is probably what most people would want to see. Anyway, I'm pairing that with Roof Man, which is just, I have a movie that I have no expectations for box office-wise. That was The Channing Tatum. Yes, Channing Tatum stars as a man who robs McDonald's' and is a family man who gets sent to prison. But he's got a heart of gold.

He's got a heart of gold. It's very straight down the middle. If this movie was not directed by Derek C. and France, I probably wouldn't be excited about it, but I love Place Beyond the Pines. This is a very specific kind of thing that he knows how to do about sad guys trying to get reconnected with their families. This is his whole thing.

It looks good. It looks fun. Channing Tatum was there. Yes. I think that is the best version of Channing Tatum, is the sort of hunky loser type. Like kind of a lunk. Agree. And that's what he's doing. Second best.

Well, I mean, I guess hunky loser. I mean, he is a hunky loser in that too. In Magic Mike, yeah. That's what he does well. I accept. He's like... Presents as a stupid guy, but then by the end you're like,

that guy's pretty smart. And that's like his whole MO. But anyway, I thought that looked very charming. Amanda, what is your number three? The Venetian scheme. You know what? Like I said, we were- Mad really negging your list.

Excuse me. This is our podcast. I know, I'm a guest. I'm wearing on my welcome. There's a reason why I haven't been on since 2017. I put on my town hat when I did my town prep and I'm ready, okay? This is a pro Wes Anderson podcast.

Okay. All right. I will defer to you. He means a lot to me. I chuckled during the trailer, which I really don't even think we need a trailer for. Were you chuckling at the dialogue or were you noticing something in the background that was perfectly a jar and probably cost $10,000 from some specialty shop in Manhattan. I was 17 years old when I saw the Royal Tenenbaums. Okay? Like, you'll never get me away from

it. It's important to me. I like spy movies. I like parodies of spy movies. It's great. I'm excited. I thought it looked good too. Yeah, thank you. I'm obviously in. I know it's, you know, I know what I'm doing when I put the Phoenician scheme on this list. Matt, I'm gonna have to ask you to hold your three and your two, because they're gonna come up on our list very shortly.

Three, two, and one. Listen, we're all aligned where it matters. I was just having a little fun in the... I'll do my number two and then we can all collaborate on the final three. My number two is Weapons. I wouldn't say this was the movie that had the most hay made about it. It's an interesting one. It was supposed to come out in January, and when the bride moved, and one battle after another moved on the Warner Brothers schedule, this is the movie that got moved into that August window. They like it. They think it's good. So it's Zach Craigworth. His first movie since Barbarian. I love Barbarian. I love Zach.

The footage that they showed, I thought was like electric. I thought this was a really, really good horror movie trailer with a great premise, which I'm not gonna spoil anything. I'll just say that in a small town, in a classroom one night, or a class one day, an entire class disappears. All the kids leave their house in the middle of the night and they're gone. Julia Garner is the teacher of this class. Josh Brolin is a parent in the community.

It's a really good cast, deeply unnerving trailer. It was a great trailer and also so great that I said, allowed to, I will never see that because it looks incredibly upsetting. Yeah. So, Craig was there earlier that week presenting his future Resident Evil movie that he's doing for Sony. The fact that this movie got moved into a summer window. This is basically the long legs slot.

This is kind of where long legs came out last year, that early August look. Could probably be a similar sort of situation. I'm very excited about this movie. Great. I'm not a horror person. I know, you know, Zack Craig got $20 million for Resident Evil.

So they have seen this and they think this is gonna be a hit. So I'm going to agree with you. With the caveat that it's just not for me. Okay, I would say there are three movies that are the intersections of our anticipation and excitement and that I think represent ultimately, like, maybe what Hollywood, if they tried a little harder,

could be more regularly. So three different versions of a certain kind of a movie. We... Sean and I made our lists, and so we were divvying them up. So there's one movie that's not on my list, but it would be if we weren't divvying them up. So we can save it. Your two-in- one would be on my list if you weren't taking it So you and I have the same two and one they're just so would you like to say anything to me? Would you like to apologize?

I think that we both have our Venn diagram crosses in subtle ways one of them being Tom Cruise Yeah, the other being Ryan Gosling. Yeah, let's talk about Ryan Gosling first Tom Cruise, the other being Ryan Gosling. Sure, yeah. Let's talk about Ryan Gosling first. The big surprise I felt of the entire week was that Amazon MGM opened their presentation with basically like a six-minute reel. It was cold open too. Cold open.

No announcements, nothing. Which no other studio did this whole week of Project Hail Mary, which is a Andy Weir novel, he's the same novelist who wrote The Martian. Somewhat similar story about a man alone in space trying to solve a problem. Yeah, Ryan Gosling. I'll try not to spoil too much about it. People who have read this book swear by this book. They love this book. The movie's directed by Lord Miller.

Gosling is the star, along with Sandra Hewler. You may remember from Anatomy of a Fall. And... What I said on x.com is it looks like a movie movie. This felt like a movie from like 2002, from 1987. It was like, it's a big scale story, but very simple. And in watching the trailer, you were just like, I'm just so interested in what happens next.

Which is very rare these days. I feel like, especially us, we're so cynical about every movie that comes along and They sold the shit out of this was electric to me. I will say so Amazon presented on Wednesday night and I had had two cocktails in rapid succession right before the 8 p.m. Presentation Latest presentation ever I think at Cinema at CinemaCon, I was told. And I think, and I had titrated Just Right, and then I sat down and they played this trailer that, I mean, the whole room was like, oh, you know, so excited.

And then Gosling walked out. And that is when I like fully gasped. So they have, this movie's not coming out until March 2026. It's going to be one year. Yeah. And they moved it, right? I don't remember what the original plan was The most shocking thing to me about this movie was when it said Lord and Miller because I mean

I've never seen I would not think that they would even want to do a movie like this Maybe this is their version of solo that they didn't get to make I think there's something to that I mean they do the 21 Jump Street movies, which are live action, obviously. They're best known, I think, for the animated movies, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Spider-Verse. But those are comedies. This is not a comedy. It clearly has comic elements, though. Maybe even more so than what they showed us, I would say.

Yeah, because they're playing up how big it is. Yes. And, you know, they said that basically none of the VFX were finished, but they showed us one sequence in space that looked incredible and very sophisticated visually and like done. Like I turned to you when we were watching it, and I was like, is this movie done? Why do we have to wait a year to see this movie?

Sounds like they have a lot more work to do, but it's very exciting. Obviously Amazon is incredibly excited about it. It's the kind of movie that like... movies need movies like that to do well. Absolutely. I am definitely rooting for this movie. I hope that Lord and Miller get more movies like this. It would be great if comedy filmmakers

turned into blockbuster filmmakers. Agree. Let's talk next about Tom. Okay. So, Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, is your number one, it's Matt's number two. By the way, Project Hail Mary was my number one. That was your number one. This is the eighth Mission Impossible film.

Yeah. Could be the last one. Come on. Christopher McCrory was presented by Tom Cruise with the director of the Year Award at CinemaCon, which as we know is one of the most important awards in all of Hollywood. In all of Hollywood. Perhaps the world.

He did give literally like a 12-minute speech. Reading off... Very awkward. Reading off of cue cards. Yeah. Someone clearly told Tom that he needs to come to CinemaCon because he needs to present to Macquarie. Yes.

And that resonated with him. Oh, I can do that. I'll go. Yes. Because I'm going for him and he's my collaborator. But like nobody else got their award. Like remember last year they gave Kevin Costner a fake award on stage and he was teary and thanked everyone? Like, I think some people... They did give Jim Brooks his award. They did, you're right.

And what was his, like, the Cinema Verite award? Something clean up thing. Again, extremely important. Yes. But like, it was a long speech about Chris McCrory, who nobody cares about. I wanted to hear Tom Cruise talk about Mission Impossible. He glanced at moments from his career, but it was the same five or six.

You know, you hear the Sherri Lansing, you know, supported me since Taps. Like, he has a couple of things he returns to. But the truth is, is that, like, McCrory literally is the most important director in his life in the last 20 years. They've made the most movies together. He's the first person he calls when one of his movies is going sideways. And he's now been directing him in what I think are these genuinely great Mission Impossible movies. If this is, in fact And he's now been directing him in what I think are these genuinely great Mission Impossible movies.

If this is in fact the last one, I would say what they showed us was pretty close to what we've seen before. There were a couple of new wrinkles, a couple of new sequences, but it's a loaded cast. Um, couple of more people. Who were the two people who were added? One was, uh... Oh my God, what's Ron from Parks and Recreation's name? Nick Offerman. Nick Offerman was featured. There was one other guy who was like in a room wearing a general's uniform that I was like, oh him too?

Milchick from Severance is in it. Tramell Tillman was in it, but yeah, there was someone, Tramell Tillman from Severance, which was exciting, but there was one other person whose name is escaping me. But aside from that, like it doesn't even matter. It's just like, it's gonna be a Mission Impossible movie. And they also interspersed clips as they did in the previous trailer from old Mission Impossible movies. Yes. They're trying to end game this.

I think specifically the first one and showing us like the arc, because there's a lot of stuff of the knock list sequence breaking into the CIA and kind of cutting back and forth to that. But I, you know. I mean, I get emotional every time I see him say, I need you to trust me one last time. It's a great line.

The whole week sort of this was the Thursday morning presentation, which was the last day. And we all knew Tom Cruise was going to come out, but they waited until the last 20 minutes. And I just like, you know, and I stayed an extra day to see Tom. It's all built to going to see Tom in peril himself for our benefit and entertainment. And I can't wait. Yeah, I will say, and we may maybe say this for the town, but like the presentation wasn't great.

It was okay. And like compared to past Cinemicon moments with Tom Cruise, I was there for Fallout where they showed the plane stunt and like, just really blew everyone away, the motorcycle thing. This one doesn't seem to have that moment. They didn't give us that. I wonder if they gave away the game too much by showing us the other, the new plane stunt early in the making of,

even before the trailer, and now we saw it in the trailer and then we see it again. So if the two red and yellow planes, the sort of red barren plane fight, if that is the big sequence, then we've already seen it. I would be surprised if there wasn't something else, though, that they're holding back. There was a quick flash of him jumping into the water from a speeding boat.

Yes, that was cool. That was very cool. Clearly he would have died in real life, but most of the things he would have. It might be the aircraft carrier that we saw. That might be the thing that... Oh, that was cool. That was very cool. Clearly he would have died in real life, but most of the things he was. It might be the aircraft carrier that we saw. That might be the thing that... Oh, that's right. Well, there's a whole water under...

There's a submarine. They added submarines into the first one. I mean, that's the fascinating thing about this movie is how much have they pivoted since the last one didn't do that well, because these were supposed to be one long story. I mean, the end of the last one is Eastside Morales, like, he's still the villain. The whole thing is about that internet. What's it called? The...

I mean... The entity. The entity, yeah. That's still gonna be it? And the cruciform key. Yeah. And he does, the cruciform key is shown in the trailer. He, like, grabs it and then he dives off to, I don't know, find it at the bottom of the ocean. I think this is just a fascinating moment for Cruise,

this movie in particular, because, you know, this next movie is with Ina Ritu next year. Is this, like, is there gonna be a break in franchise filmmaking for him? Will he go to a different phase or not? It's possible. If this movie does really well, I think it will have this kind of dual effect

of I could say that I'll table this sort of thing for now and focus on other kinds of movies, which people like you and I have been begging him to make for 10 years. Or, if it works, does Paramount need him to make Nine ASAP? We'll see. Yeah, I don't believe this is the last Mission Impossible. I just don't. It's like fiscally irresponsible to not do it. Like, you can't, you have to have it in...

Maybe it won't happen right away. Yeah. People will want it. Yeah. Okay, number one. This is my number one. This is Matt's number three. Where would this be for you? Definitely number two. We saw an extended sequence from one battle after another. It feels like a moment shortly after the moment in the trailer

where Leo is trying to make a moment shortly after the moment in the trailer where Leo is trying to make a connection with the revolutionaries over the phone, and he's forgotten the password. Um... What this told me without ruining anything for anybody is that this is, while it is a big, heavy movie with lots of set pieces and locations,

that it's basically a weird, zany comedy, and the tone is very fast and funny and a little goofy. absurdist. absurdist. Like, almost the way that Boogie Nights was absurdist. Yes. Where they all believe they're in the most serious movie that they've ever been in, but we see through that.

Yes. Um, I don't want to ruin it for anybody, but this basically, not that I needed any confirmation on my excitement, but I was like, we're good. This is gonna be good. I know it's gonna be good. Yes. You referenced Wolf of Wall Street to me in terms of like the, the tone of the Leo performance of that it that's big and a lot going on, but also it's funny. Um, yes.

Yeah. So this is a huge gamble. Obviously there's been, you've been writing about what's been going on at Warner Brothers over the last few months and the, months and the bets that Pam and Mike are making. I will say they lifted the Sinners embargo this morning, two weeks early, because they premiered it last night and everybody came out screaming it's great. I did see it a few weeks ago. It is great. I don't I'm very curious to see how that movie performs. But there's a world where maybe this movie does a

little bit better than they thought. They also showed us some of The Bride, which I thought was going to be like a f performs, but there's a world where maybe this movie does a little bit better than they thought. They also showed us some of The Bride, which I thought was gonna be like a fiasco based on some of the reporting. I thought it looked kind of cool. Yeah, we turned to each other and we were like, yeah, again, we're wearing our big picture hats right now, Matt. Please, you know. No, no, listen, I thought it looked different.

Congratulations to Jesse Buckley, by the way. It did look different. The Bride certainly looks different. The thing that was interesting about One Battle After Another to me is that it feels bigger than the initial trailer. When I saw that first trailer, I was like, how did this movie cost $150 million? Like, what are they doing here? It can't just be Leo. But then this footage they showed,

there were helicopters, there were multiple battle sequences. There were things that... The Sean Penn military element is clearly a big part of that budget. And that, to me at least, both creatively, I was more interested in this. I thought it looked better to me. And I think from a studio perspective, you get it a little bit more. It might be easier for them to sell than we're thinking, because it's PTA. And it was funny. This is a Lebowski-esque performance from Leo, it looks like.

It does. Yeah. That sounds good to me. And he was there. He was... He was there. We'll talk about that on the town. Should we go to our episode of the town, Amanda?

You want to do that right now? Yeah, great. Matt, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thanks, guys. I look forward to being back in 2031. What is it? Yeah, I don't know. We should definitely try to do CinemaCon again sometime soon.

For the rest of our conversation about the presentations and what to expect from movies in the next 12 months, go listen to The Town as soon as possible. Hopefully we're double posting. Thanks to John Jones for filling in as producer today. Thanks to Matt and Craig Horlbeck. Next week on the show, we were going to do best movies of the year, but I think we're going to pivot a little bit. Yeah, a little thin on the show, we were going to do best movies of the year, but I think we're going to pivot a little bit. Yeah, a little thin on the ground.

It's a little thin on the ground, well put. We are going to talk about a Minecraft movie, speaking of Warner Brothers, and we'll have like a little bit of a movie state of the union, because there's a lot of shifting tides at the moment that we need to sort through. We will recommend some of the best movies that we've seen, right? I've been catching up on some stuff. I added one to the list. You did? Yeah.

Okay. One. All right, guys. Thank you. See you soon.