The Movie Stars are still at it (CinemaCon)

We’ve already covered the drama at CinemaCon, now let’s get back to our regularly scheduled Movie Stars.

As Lainey said, CinemaCon is a celebration of movie stars and star power, and to that end, Ryan Gosling appeared to celebrate the success of Project Hail Mary and literally give the audience of theater owners their flowers.

During the Amazon MGM presentation, it was announced that Project Hail Mary will extend its theatrical run. This is exactly the kind of flexibility studios should have—if a movie is a hit and audiences are still turning up, keep it in theaters! I am convinced Warner Bros. cost themselves money last summer by pulling Superman when it was still playing strong in theaters because they set an arbitrary timeline to dump the movie on VOD. Anyway, Mike Hopkins, the head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM, also pledged that Amazon MGM will release fifteen feature films into theaters every year. Cool if true!

The Amazon MGM presentation was certainly star-studded, which bodes well for their big plans. Besides The Gos, they had Academy Award Winner Michael B. Jordan™️ on hand to talk about his remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, alongside his co-star Adria Arjona, as well as Mahershala Ali, Hugh Jackman and Nicholas Braun, and Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, and Travis Knight were there to stump for Masters of the Universe. If the He-Man movie fails, it won’t be for lack of trying, they are really giving this movie the ole Barbie try.

But you KNOW the part of the Amazon MGM presentation I care about the most is for the Spaceballs sequel. It has an official title: Spaceballs: The New One. Mel Brooks filmed a video for the title and date announcement:

I am trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but damn, “Spaceballs: The Money” is a GOOD joke. Comedy sequels are SO hard to pull off, I just do not want to put too many eggs in this basket, and they have cast Josh Gad, after all, but Mel Brooks is coming in hot with the jokes, and Bill Pullman and Lewis Pullman are giving me some kind of generational whiplash. Bill Pullman should be doing denim ads because his genes are STRONG.

I just have to wait one year to find out if Mel Brooks can pull this off. Some might say that Spaceballs isn’t a high bar to clear, it was never Brooks’s best, but in it, Brooks perfectly predicted the sequel-franchise culture Hollywood is stuck in right now. I just want to see where he goes with that now that the future he predicted is here. With 2x Pullman because THEY HAVE THE SAME FACE.

But Amazon MGM wasn’t the only presentation yesterday. Universal also had their presentation, which included Focker-In-Law, part of the Focker Cinematic Universe. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro were on hand to promote the film, which is one of the few trailers to emerge from CinemaCon:

Christopher Nolan was there, too, but did not bring any cast members from The Odyssey. Steven Spielberg, meanwhile, made his first appearance at CinemaCon—lowkey amazing that is true—alongside Colman Domingo to present Disclosure Day. Spielberg was also given a one-time “America 250” award, because you know we Americans are going to be super f-cking HIGH KEY about the 250^th anniversary of the nation this summer. Just in time for the republic to collapse!

Mostly, I am just bringing them up to shout out Colman Domingo’s excellent SNL episode last weekend. He did a great job as a host, I hope he comes back sooner rather than later. “Fashion District Robbery” is a fantastic sketch, and D’Artagnan Meringue is the kind of character that could make return appearances for sure. “Boho derogatory” is a deliciously specific burn. Anyway, Colman Domingo remains the best, and I’m sure we’ll see him in a couple weeks at the Met Gala. He should go in character as D’Artagnan Meringue. The theme is costumes, after all!