After three straight years of closing its CinemaCon presentation with “Wicked” footage, Universal trotted out Christopher Nolan for “The Odyssey” and Steven Spielberg for “Disclosure Day,” the latter as the studio’s big finale.
In these Daily Dispatches from CinemaCon, we’re sharing the highlights of what we saw, what was announced, what we didn’t, and what was the overall vibe.
The BEST Thing We Saw
Of course it was “The Odyssey.” Christopher Nolan said that the reason he wanted to make “The Odyssey” was because it’s not a story but the story, one that has enchanted audiences for 3,000 years, and he wanted to seize the opportunity to bring it to a modern audience.
“This movie was a nightmare to film…but in all the right ways, and we had an incredible time filming,” Nolan said. He described going all over the world for the film and dragging Damon into caves, onto the ocean, essentially putting him through the ringer, and that he said “you’ll be pleased to know how difficult it was to make.” That’s because he also worked with IMAX to figure out how to film dialogue scenes with the same intensity that the action scenes have. He showcased the Trojan Horse sequence, and we describe it in more detail here.
On the Focus Features side, Robert Eggers’ “Werwulf” looked absolutely intense in a very short tease, and we wrote a bit about it here. The film looks as terrifying, demonic, and disturbing as anything he’s done, so we’re sure it will be another Christmas hit after “Nosferatu” made $181 million globally.
The BIG News in the Room
Snoop Dogg in DA HOUSE. Universal kicked off its presentation with actor Jonathan Daviss, who will portray Snoop in a biopic about the rapper’s life arriving next year (the film is still untitled and undated). Snoop gave some miniature performances of his hits. Brian Grazer, who made “8 Mile,” is producing the film for Imagine, and Snoop said the film starts filming this summer in Los Angeles. He also says he has a historic bungalow right there on the lot next to Spielberg. “There goes the neighborhood…they called the fire department on me twice already, but there was no fire, just smoke.”
Universal showed three trailers without other intros. The first, “One Night Only,” was like if “The Purge” were a rom-com, in which sex is only legal one night a year and sees Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro potentially hooking up. “Other Mommy” is a Blumhouse film in which Jessica Chastain stars and is the mother of a child who sees a monster who looks just like her mom. And “Violent Night 2” shows David Harbour’s Santa Claus turning up on his own Naughty List, losing his magic, and needing to go to a mall to save Christmas. Also Kirsten Bell is Mrs. Claus wielding a sword.
Finally, Steven Spielberg was presented with the MPA America250 Award by MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin before he sat down for a conversation with Colman Domingo. The two talked about theaters, Spielberg’s history with and nostalgia for Universal, and aliens, with Spielberg saying he became fascinated again with life beyond our planet because of how UFO has transformed into “’UAP,’ Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon.” He also made a plea for more original stories, even ones based on books, and shouted out “Project Hail Mary.”
“If all we make is known, branded IP, we’re going to run out of gas, and we’re going to run out of gas very quickly,” he said. “There’s nothing more important than giving audiences original stories…we have to keep telling stories that people can’t even imagine, and that’s what’s going to keep this business alive and in movie theaters for the next hundred years.”
Spielberg then said that he wanted to be very very careful about not revealing too much about “Disclosure Day,” and he said “all you need to get from the beginning to the end is a seatbelt.” We saw effectively an extended trailer from the film, a little more of the weather lady sequence with Emily Blunt, Colin Firth as a government agent trying to track down Blunt, and Josh O’Connor getting an intense phone call warning from Blunt saying that they’re going to kill him before he escapes by driving his car through his own house. It’s clear too that Blunt and O’Connor’s characters somehow know each other from their past and are connected in mysterious ways.
What We EXPECTED to See but Didn’t
After news earlier this month that Ryan Gosling had joined and then had to drop out of the upcoming Daniels film, there were no new announcements or updates about that project, and the same for Jordan Peele’s next movie, which last year was removed from the release slate after originally being pegged for October 2026. We also expected some love thrown at films like “Shrek 5” or “Fast Forever,” but they got nary a mention.
On a more business-y note, Chairman Donna Langley, who jokingly chided Sony’s Tom Rothman for the “unauthorized use” of the Olympic rings during his presentation, gave her appreciation for both exhibitors and filmmakers, but she did not mention the studio’s previously announced 45-day windowing policy for all its wide releases (excluding Focus Features titles).
What We LEARNED
Universal loves its filmmakers. Distribution chief Jim Orr rattled off a long list of not just movies but the directors who made them dating back to 1930’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” from Lewis Milestone. It doesn’t get any bigger than Christopher Nolan or Steven Spielberg, and they’re glad to have them be the face of their IP even more so than some of their franchises. “It’s no stretch to say that almost every filmmaker who has changed the course of storytelling through film has found a home at Universal,” Orr said.
Other Bullets
- Illumination’s Chris Meledandri shouted out Jack Black as a “true movie star.” Black took part in all three of the major studio presentations thus far, including Sony for “Jumanji,” Warner Bros. for “A Minecraft Movie,” and Universal for “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.”
- One of the two “Minions & Monsters” scenes shown made references to Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last!” and Buster Keaton’s “The General” and “Steamboat Bill, Jr.,” and there’s a movie director character in the film voiced by Christoph Waltz, who needs to put the Minions in his movie.
- Ben Stiller is the actor NOT in “The Odyssey,” and he joked he was backstage lighting up with Snoop Dogg and Steven Spielberg. Watch the “Focker In-Law” trailer here.
- Robert De Niro was abundantly clear he was reading from a teleprompter, even though he got some pretty good laughs at Ben Stiller’s expense.
