10 Big Takeaways From CinemaCon 2025

“Moviegoing is our mission.” That was the slogan unveiled last month by the national trade organization now known as Cinema United, and for theaters across the country, the mission has just begun. As 2025 enters its second quarter, a busy summer movie season awaits, and Cinema United wants to make every bit of it worthwhile.

Each year, the organization hosts the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas, where every major Hollywood studio crams into Caesar’s Palace for a series of snazzy presentations. Executives, movie stars, and filmmakers stand in front of a packed house as they unveil clips, trailers, hints of big plans down the line to movie theaters eager to make the most of the months ahead.

So far, these presentations have made it clear that eclecticism rules the day: Fast cars, superheroes, romantic dramas, and modern-day musicals will all jockey for attention on the big screen. All of that arrives alongside various international offerings, many of which will show up in the Cannes Film Festival lineup announced next week.

With so many movies in the pipeline, the entire industry is working to clarify its goals, including the exhibition community. For the past six decades, Cinema United was called the National Association of Theatre Owners, a name that led to the acronym NATO, which caused a lot of confusion. With its new name and tagline, the organization is well-situated to focus on the needs of independent movie theaters nationwide serving the needs of local audiences.

The Playhouse has found a warm welcome at CinemaCon. Ahead of this year’s convention, Cinema United dropped a report featuring a handful of notable theaters, and the Playhouse was the only theater included to have recently opened its doors. Read the full report here.

For many years, I scoffed at CinemaCon. After all, who wants to talk about trailers when you can wait to watch the finished product? Now I appreciate its significance as an opportunity to get an immediate impression of the major new releases on the horizon. I have emerged with a clearer sense of how studios plan to position movies and what will drive enthusiasm among moviegoers throughout the year. Thankfully, there is much to be excited about.

Readers are encouraged to reach out to me here about which upcoming releases pique their interest.

Keanu Reeves Is Everywhere

The first John Wick movie catapulted Keanu Reeves into his second phase as an action hero, and over a decade later, the momentum keeps going. Lionsgate revealed a massive package of John Wick plans at CinemaCon, including this summer’s spinoff Ballerina, which features Ana de Armas as a relentless assassin coping with no less than Wick himself (the events take place prior to his retirement at the start of the first movie) on her tail. The studio showed an incredible sequence in which de Armas smashes endless plates on the head of her foe, and the actress took the stage afterward to explain the intensity of her training for the production.

But even if Reeves is only a supporting character in Ballerina, he’s got a lot more on offer, as the studio announced both an animated prequel movie and pre-production for John Wick 5 in the works.

Meanwhile, Reeves also popped up as a dysfunctional guardian angel in Aziz Ansari’s comedy Good Fortune, which looks like a zany, surreal good time. Tack on the fall Broadway production of Waiting for Godot in which Reeves stars alongside his Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure co-star Alex Winter and it’s clear that, at the stage of 60, Reeves has never been more ubiquitous.

Big Plans for the Beatles – and Other Rockers, Too

The biggest swing of CinemaCon so far may belong to Sony Pictures, which announced on the opening night of the convention plans for four movies about The Beatles all released at the same time in 2028. Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan, and Harris Dickinson star as Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon, each of whom will receive their own spotlight in a feature-length narrative feature. Oscar-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes will direct all four movies over the course of a year, resulting in what Sony executive Tom Rothman called “the first bingeable theatrical experience.”

With a few years to go until that ambition experiment hits screens, musical fans may want to consider more immediate options. The Weeknd’s intense-looking narrative feature Hurry Up Tomorrow, an upcoming movie that shares its title with his new album, boasts a supporting role for Jenna Ortega and direction from the talented auteur Trey Edward Shults (It Comes at Night, Waves). The singer showed up for a brief performance at CinemaCon this year, and it didn’t take long for him to bring down the house.

We also got a sneak peek at The Bear breakout doing his best Bruce Springsteen in the biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, set to come out this fall. Needless to say, big-time fans of The Boss probably won’t be let down. After A Complete Unknown pleased Dylan fans last fall, the rock-star biopic is back to being an ideal platform for rising stars, and White certainly seems like he fits the part – while Springsteen’s blue-collar bonafides remain as popular as ever, which could mean box office gold.

Bring on the Best Actor Race

While Oscar season usually takes shape in the fall, it’s already clear that a few actors are well-positioned to stand out from the fray. The aforementioned White performance is one of them, but he’s not alone. Paramount provided an extended look at footage from Roofman, a new drama from Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance in which Channing Tatum plays a convict who escapes from jail and hides out at grocery store. Based on a true story, the movie looks like a gripping and very fun blend of high-stakes thrills and romance that should bring the ever-endearing Tatum into serious awards season consideration as the movie comes out in October.

The Best Actress race still seems a bit murkier, though A Big Bold Beautiful Journey provides one possibility with Margot Robbie. Atmospheric filmmaker Kogonada appears to have blended the talky romance of his debut Columbus with the sci-fi leanings of After Yang to tell the unusual meet-cute tale of a soft-spoken man (Colin Farrell) who picks up an affable woman (Robbie) in her first post-Barbie role) and takes her for a long drive to…somewhere. The trailer was vague, but it appears the two eventually go traipsing through their early memories together, commenting on each other’s past along the way. It’s an intriguing, lyrical undertaking from a storyteller whose emerging talent is worth keeping tabs on.

And then there’s Julia Roberts. Some 25 years after her Erin Brokovich win, Roberts may well return to the awards conversation with After the Hunt, the latest drama from Challengers director Luca Guadagnino. Scheduled for release from Amazon/MGM in October, the movie stars Roberts as a college professor whose career is endangered by revelations of her dark past. Guadagnino always delivers taut, gripping narratives, and this one certainly looks like a stellar vehicle for Roberts’ domineering screen presence.

Fast-Paced Stunts Galore

Some formulas never get old, and fast cars certainly haven’t lost their appeal, as extensive footage from F1 proved. The speedy opening minutes of the new racecar drama screened to show off Brad Pitt at the center of Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski’s latest effort, which was shot at real races around the world, where most audiences didn’t realize Pitt was behind the wheel. It looks like a dizzying, relentless spectacle.

Kosinski was the blockbuster auteur behind Top Gun: Maverick, which brought new energy to the box office after the pandemic in 2022, thanks in no small part to Tom Cruise. Now Cruise is back on IMAX screens this summer with Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning, a follow-up to the seventh entry that came out last year. Cruise took the stage at CinemaCon to salute Final Reckoning director Christopher McQuarrie, but the 62-year-old was also there to unveil a trailer loaded with the usual parade of jaw-dropping stunts (Cruise clinging to the side of an airplane chief among them). It’s unclear how long the actor can keep up these astonishing feats, but they’re always welcome on the big screen.

Scary Movie Season

Horror movies tend to flood the market because scary stories promise a great escape, and if there’s potential in the material, you can’t have too much of a good thing.

The onslaught of horror movies on the 2025 calendar hold a lot of potential. CinemaCon audiences saw sneak peaks of two upcoming Stephen King adaptations, The Long Walk and The Life of Chuck (which isn’t a horror movie), while Danny Boyle unveiled his decades-in-the-making zombie survival effort 28 Years Later, coming this summer. Boyle and filmmaker Nia DaCosta are already putting the finishing touches on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a sequel set for January, and Boyle told the CinemaCon crowd he was seeking financing for third entry.

However that pans out, there will be plenty of other options for horror fans in the immediate future, including what looks like a terrifying conscious uncoupling between Dave Franco and Alison Brie in Together, as well as a twisty horror-thriller from the director of the surprise horror hit Barbarian called Weapons. (Good luck figuring out the plot from the baffling trailer.)

There’s also a plethora of spooky-scary appeal from Blumhouse, which unveiled sneak peeks of Five Nights at Freddys 2 as well as the killer doll spinoff M3GAN 2.0 (which looks almost like an action-comedy as the villain of the previous movie goes on a mission to murder another one), and a M3GAN spinoff called SOULM8TE, which stars Lily Sullivan as a killer robot girlfriend. Wild stuff for an era of AI-fueled paranoia.

On top of that, the most intriguing original horror effort was Him, a sports-based horror movie with Marlon Wayans and Tyriq Withers about a football quarterback pushed to achieve success under violent circumstances. Produced by Get Out auteur Jordan Peele, Him seems like a totally fresh take on genre tropes that could reinvigorate the sports movie with a whole new tone.

Still, the most entertaining horror sneak revealed so far is Final Destination: Bloodlines, the latest entry in a franchise that uses Rube Goldberg logic to kill its various doomed protagonists after they think they’ve cheated death. No spoilers here, but the gruesome details of the newest entry are both disturbing and darkly hilarious in that very special Final Destination sort of way. Buckle up.

Superhero Summer

The ultimate comic book superhero has a rich history on the big screen that predates the Marvel Cinematic Universe by many decades. Perhaps that’s why Superman director James Gunn, when presenting a clip from his new interpretation of the character, referenced the Max Fleisher cartoons of the 1940s. It’s hard to tell how Gunn, best known for The Guardians of the Galaxy, will revitalize the Man of Steel with this major July release.

However, the clip shared with CinemaCon audiences, in which an injured Supe (David Corenswet) gets saved by his adorable-but-annoying dog Krypto, promises a movie so eager to please its audiences that it could reignite enthusiasm for the most famous fictional good guy in history. And if that happens, moviegoers – and the world in general – stand to benefit a great deal.

But Superman is not alone as the movie is sandwiched between two new Marvel movies. Disney delivered an extended preview of Thunderbolts, its fast-paced comedic superhero comedy starring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, and Julia Louise-Dreyfuss. The group of renegade anti-heroes promises to inject fresh energy into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Its stars made a hilarious entrance into the Vegas presentation with a bit about Russell’s gambling addiction, hinting at the playful tone of the movie.

Thunderbolts kicks off the summer movie season on May 2, 2025, but the MCU story will continue two months later with the release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps in July. This one stars Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby as the heads of a superpowered family in 1950s America, a clever trick that takes the world-building of the dense Marvel canon to a whole new backdrop, and includes Julia Garner as the glittery Silver Surfer. All of which means there will be no shortage of comic-book-to-screen translations in the months ahead, and they all look quite different.

A Dragon Arrives

CinemaCon isn’t known for showing full-length movies, but usually, one sneaks in there. This year, it was the live action version of the hit animated series How to Train Your Dragon, and it was a huge hit in the room. Dean DeBlois, who directed the three animated films, returns for a faithful live-action version that benefits from the way these movies play up the appeal of high-stakes aerial action. While there’s quite a bit more fantasy involved than Top Gun, the appeal is very similar: Warriors swoop through the skies, whip through the clouds, and battle to save the day to a rousing score. In this case, of course, it’s vikings riding on dragons rather than military men, but you get the idea: How to Train Your Dragon is a big-screen blast, and Universal knows it, as the studio announced plans for a live-action How to Train Your Dragon 2 a few hours after the screening. The new installment opens on IMAX June 13, 2025.

Lindsay Lohan Comeback Story

Successful comedic franchises tend to make a comeback every few years, from Ghostbusters to 21 Jump Street and Men in Black. This year’s most surprising comedic reboot was Naked Gun, which swaps the late Leslie Nielsen for Liam Neeson (the very similarity of their names being a joke unto itself). The movie, produced by Seth MacFarlane, seems to play off Neeson’s established action-star persona to great effect. But there was another revised comedy franchise that might end up with similar crowdpleasing potential for a very different crowd.

Freakier Friday reunites Lindsay Lohan with Jamie Lee Curtis 22 years after the pair swapped bodies in Freaky Friday, establishing Lohan’s stardom in the process. The movie has gained fans over the years and become a true cult classic among certain generations of moviegoers. Now, Lohan is poised for a comeback and Curtis (who won her first Oscar two years ago for Everything Everywhere All at Once) has never been more widely beloved, and Freakier Friday may help them remind audiences why they loved the original in the first place.

The new movie has a weirder, wilder body-swapping premise that once again finds older actresses pretending to be young and younger actresses pretending to be old. It looks like another fun excuse to explore a clash of generations, the sort of juxtaposition that never gets old. And for Lohan, it’s an ideal opportunity to reignite her big-screen appeal at a very different stage of life from when the first installment came out.

Late Period Luke Skywalker

In the years since he first played Luke Skywalker with Star Wars in 1977, Mark Hamill hasn’t exactly gone away, but he seems more ubiquitous than ever before at the age of 73. Hamill walked the stage multiple times at CinemaCon, his first time in attendance: He was there to promote his role as an evil drill sergeant in The Long Walk, as Tom Hiddleston’s supportive grandfather in The Life of Chuck, and – perhaps most significantly for a new generation of moviegoers – as the pirate villain of The SpongeBob Movie: The Search for SquarePants, opening this summer. “Every child in America will hate my guts,” he joked from the stage. Perhaps, but older moviegoers will certainly appreciate that Hamill is still out there, more versatile than ever.