Warner Bros. 2024 CinemaCon Panel Live Blog
CinemaBlend is in Las Vegas this week for CinemaCon 2024. We are attending every major movie studio panel, and will be bringing you complete updates of what is announced, and the footage that is revealed. We are kicking things off this Tuesday with a Live Blog of the Warner Bros. panel, so refresh the page often to follow along!
Show is about to begin, folks, so stay here for updates on Joker 2, Furiosa, Horizon parts one and two, and more!
Warner Bros. is coming off of a major win in Godzilla x Kong, so I expect them to celebrate that film's success at the start of the presentation.
I was close. WB executives come out, dressed in Beetlejuice suits, and celebrate the incredible run that Barbie had last year at theaters. Including its Oscar run.
WB executives thanking theater exhibitors for helping them distributing the number of movies that the studio wants to put out every year. Repeats their commitment to making big blockbuster entertainment, listing Wonka, Dune 2, and Godzilla x Kong.
OK, all the "celebrations" and back patting is over. Time to start teasing the 2024 slate of Warner Bros. films! First up, Furiosa!
Furiosa panel opens with a new logo, and the roar of engines that rattled audience members in their chests. This is going to be a massive reason to see the movie in theaters. The SOUND!
George Miller now on stage with Anya Taylor Joy and Chris Hemsworth.
Keep refreshing for updates...
George Miller says that Furiosa will cover 16 to 18 years of back story for the character, and the world. He says he just finished the movie last week.
George Miller praising Anya Taylor Joy's discipline in playing the title role. Claims that if the Apocalypse were to happen, he'd want to be with Anya to survive.
Chris Hemsworth talks about his character, saying he needs to be twisted and demented, but because he's also a leader, he needed to have some charm, some wit, and some charisma.
Miller, complimenting his actors, talks about spending a year in the cutting room, and now being so blown away at how different Anya Taylor Joy and Chris Hemsworth are from their characters. Hemsworth also talks about how, growing up in Australia with the Mad Max movies, Miller was "a God-like figure" to his family, and working with him was surreal.
Miller shows the audience an extended preview. It was broken into three chapters, and showed off a slew of footage. The sections are:
I. Her Odyssey Begins
This segment spent time with young Furiosa, who eventually is abducted from The Green Place. We learn about her relationship with her mother, and the erason why Hemsworth's character takes young Furiosa. Our lead character is repeatedly told to "Protect the Green Place." And her mother instructs her, "Whatever you have to do ... promise me you'll find your way home."
Section two of the footage was called:
II. A Warrior Awakens
This looks to be the evolution of Furiosa as a road warrior (pun intended) Anya Taylor-Joy takes over the role here, and we see her mentorship in the wastelands. She screams, "My mother. My childhood. I want them back."
Finally, the third act becomes:
III. Ride Into Vengeance
It looks beyond badass.
WB shifts to its first Shyamalan feature. Ishana Shyamalan teases her horror movie The Watchers, which has something to do with Dakota Fanning and horrifying creatures that stalk the woods of Ireland. It's straight horror.
James Gunn is now on screen teasing SUPERMAN, and next year's "The Summer of Superman."
Her also thanked exhibitors for all they did to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 a hit.
This video opened with a Superman logo, which looked exactly like the one on David Corenswet's chest.
Now Peter Safran is on stage to talk DC. The Superman logo is still on the screen, because Safran is teasing Super / Man: The Christopher Reeve story. This doc earned huge raves at Sundance earlier this year. Put it on your radar.
Peter Safran says that Super / Man will play theaters in September, and then unveiled the first trailer. It's deeply emotional, incredibly human, and should play enormously well with DC fans, and movie lovers.
Up next, it's time for Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Story, and Costner is coming on stage!
Costner talks about why he needed to go back to the Western. Says that going to the movie speaks to him, and he always sought stories that would bring an audience entertainment. He said he always found that inspiration in the story of America.
Costner says he prefers "Journey Movies" over "Plot Movies." He'd prefer audiences taking a ride. Horizon covers 12 years of time, starting before the Civil War and through it. He talks about how the war had an effect on The West, that he will explore. He started working on this movie in 1988. And he says that he has written four movies in this saga. Tells audiences:
They're coming! They're coming to you.
Horizon part one arrives in June. Part two arrives in August. We'll see if Costner gets to keep going, and delivering all four movies he has mapped out. It's funny that Sam Worthington is in Horizon, given that he's also in Avatar, which has an endless number of chapters to it...
Up next is Mickey 17, the latest from Parasite director Bong Joon-ho, who is coming on stage for the first time at CinemaCon!
Bong explains why his movie is called Mickey 17, while the source book is Mickey 7. He jokes that the number reflects the number of times the character dies, so Bong killed him 10 additional times!
The Mickey 17 trailer is about to screen:
Oh, OK, Mickey 17 looks hilarious. I didn't realize it was so comedic. It's sci-fi, with a Snowpiercer tone, that follows a character named Mickey (Robert Pattinson) who signs up to be an "expendable," which means he's repeatedly cloned for tough missions. And killed off. Again and again. But it escalates. The cast is excellent. In addition to multiple Pattinsons, we get Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, and Toni Collette.
The worst part? It has a January release date. Looks worth the wait.
And now, the other Shyamalan on the WB slate: Trap, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
This is the first movie that Night is doing with WB. He's on stage to describe Trap, and to thank the distributors for their partnership.
Night uses the words "provocative" and "unusual" to describe Trap. He says that the audience will be the members of an actual audience, who come to the theater to see a singer, Lady Raven, on stage. The performer begins singing a haunting ballad, and as you get swept up in the concert... something terrible happens.
The trailer for Trap revealed a bunch. I hope it appears online, because I don't want to give it away.... so, we'll move on to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and the legacy of Tim Burton.
The lure of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is complete and total immersion into the mind of Tim Burton. And Michael Keaton insisting that if they are going to even bother to do it, they need to rely on techniques and effects that they did on the original movie. The footage shows a lot of behind-the-scenes moments on filming of both Beetlejuice and the sequel. And if you like that movie, this is very much up your alley.
Tim Burton is now on stage with his cast, including Catherine O'Hara, Willem Dafoe, and Michael Keaton!
It has been 35 years since Beetlejuice. Originally, Tim Burton was interested in the Lydia character. Now, he says the Deetz family is the anchor of the story, and so we will see generations of Deetz women. The movie, he says, feels like a big family reunion.
Keaton hypes up Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, telling the crowd:
It's really fucking good. It's really, really good. Actually, it's great.
Justin Theroux warns that he can't say anything about his character or the plot. Tells us every day was fun. (Sigh) Keaton, meanwhile, compares this one to the original, when he and Burton were figuring it all out. This time out, he credits the supporting cast being hilarious, and specifically calls out Jenna Ortega for being a "perfect" addition, understanding the tone immediately. They're showing an extended version of the existing trailer, but Burton is heading back to London to finish the movie. It looks amazing. Great looks at the new characters, some sequences of stop-motion animation, and deep looks into the underworld. Looks amazing!
Finally.... JOKER 2!
Todd Phillips on stage. He's huge with exhibitors, thanking them for supporting Joker when "bizarre rumors" swirled against the movie in the month leading up to its release.
Phillips says that even though he always called Joker "a one-off," he and Joaquin Phoenix talked about sequel ideas while filming the first movie, because they love the character and the world. So when Joker did so well, they knew they had to keep going on it. He says Lady Gaga is magic, and he knew (while producing A Star Is Born) that she was the one who had to play opposite Phoenix.
The director doesn't call this a musical. He says that music is an important element to it, same as it was in the first movie. "(Arthur) has music to him. He has a dance to him."
We are now the first people in the world to see the trailer. It will be online right after this.
Still unclear if the musical is in Arthur's head or not. But Joker 2 is definitely a romance, with strong musical elements, and it looks majestic. Bring it on.
That's it for WB. Thanks, all, for following.
