CinemaCon trudges on

CinemaCon continues, a relentless march, and yesterday brought presentations from Disney and Paramount. First, Disney, which held their presentation amidst company-wide layoffs, which have taken out about 8% of Marvel’s staff, too. Nothing says “celebrate cinema” like firings! Woo!

Disney’s presentation included a new trailer for Avengers: Doomsday—which we’ll see eventually—and Robert Downey, Jr. Apparently, the trailer confirms that Doctor Doom, as played by RDJ, will have an accent. The trailer also includes the reunion of Thor and Steve Rogers. Sounds a lot more interesting than those teasers released around the holidays. Also, Disney is sticking with the December 18 release date that puts Doomsday directly up against Dune: Part 3. The tussle for IMAX screen is allegedly moot because Disney is developing their own premium large format certification called “Infinity: Vision” and you will never convince me this is anything other than marketing.

IMAX can be marketing a lot of the time, too, which is why filmmakers will specify when a film is “shot in IMAX”. True IMAX involves unique cameras and projectors. But a lot of the premium large format (PLF) theaters are just marketing with a big screen and the sound cranked to 11, with no real audio/visual advantage over a normally priced movie ticket. I will need a LOT more information before I see this “Infinity: Vision” thing as anything other than a way to try and make it seem like Doomsday is special when Dune 3 is in all the IMAX theaters this December.

The Disney panel also included Tom Hanks and Tim Allen promoting Toy Story 5, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Catherine Laga'aia promoting the live-action Moana, and Jon Favreau turned up to hype The Mandalorian and Grogu, which released a new trailer online.

Still not doing a lot for me. No cause for concern, I’m sure!

The Paramount presentation brought out adult baby David Ellison, who couldn’t attend a senate hearing about his mega-merger but CAN go to Las Vegas, as well as confirming Top Gun 3 is in the works. Given how long a sequel took, call me when they’re actually rolling cameras on that one.

Paramount did have some star power on stage, mostly thanks to the cast of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s adaptation of Children of Blood and Bone, her first feature film since The Woman King. The film stars Regina King, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, and Thuso Mbedu, and is about a magical African kingdom. The footage description sounds rad, sure wish we could see it and get hype. Paramount also had Billie Eilish and James Cameron, who collaborated on Eilish’s concert film, Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour. Is James Cameron involved because Billie sings a song called “Ocean Eyes”? Did anyone tell Jim that song is not about the ocean?