Warner Bros. kicked off its annual “Big Picture” presentation at CinemaCon on Tuesday afternoon. Warner Bros. Executives Jeff Goldstein and Andrew Cripp came out dressed as Bettlejuice, after dressing in Barbie themed outfits last year. They start by having fun with their costumes before naming some of the successful Warner Bros. titles from 2023. “You helped bring Pink Fever to the world,” they say to the theater owners in attendance. “You helped make Barbie not just the biggest movie of last year but in Warners’ 100 years of history.” A sizzle reel looks back at the previous films before debuting footage from Furiosa, Mickey 17, Joker 2, and more.
Looking at the success of recent titles such as Dune and Wonka, the attention turns to Godzilla by Kong which has already surpassed $370 million at the worldwide box office. The major upcoming 2024 titles will be previewed during this presentation. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is confirmed to arrive in 2024’s holiday season.
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Co-CEOs of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures, Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca, take the stage. The first title which will be covered in the presentation if Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. “The epic film canon [George Miller] created in 1979, it continues to deliver on all of those thrills by immersing us in the dystopian post-apocalyptic world that is often imitated but never duplicated.” Miller takes the stage with Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy.
“This takes place over 16 to 18 years,” Miller said. “We wrtoe the backstories for everybody, of Furiosa, for all those years and also for Mad MAx in the year before. When Fury Road had enough traction, we thought, ‘Oh, we’ve gotta go and do Furiosa,’ and here we are. Just finished last week.”
Taylor-Joy says, “this is the story of one woman’s commitment to relentless hope.” Adding, “I think this film more than any other film thst I’ve made, as a fan of Mad Max…I would step out of myself and go, ‘This is happening!’”
“It comes down to the script initially,” Hemsworth says of his character. “A twisted, cruel character on one hand but in order for him to lead this horde of bikers and nomadic individuals across the wasteland that there was some positiivity ahead of them, there had to be some charisma. We wanted to weave in charm…but there needed to be a darkness, too.” This informs the way Hemsworth’s character moved, dressed, and spoke with constant manipulation in mind.
Miller says they had the script for a long time. “I knew of Chris and we somehow met and we talked and in that conversation, very far reaching and multileveled, I thought, basically, ‘This guys got a lot of dimensions to him,’” Miller said of Hemsworth.
An extended sneak peek at the film plays. It is broken into parts, with the first seeing Hemsworth’s Dr. Dementus finding a young Furiosa. The second sees Furiosa becoming a fighter. The third sees Furiosa seeking revenge. It was several minutes long and action-packed. The film sees Furiosa wanting revenge for the loss of her mother and childhood, neither of which she is able to get back which puts her against Dementus.
The Watchers is up next, a horror film. Ishyana Shamyalan takes the stage, celebrating her first film. “It was very cool to have this baseline book that was there,” she said. “The sets in the movie are exactly what I saw when I was reading that for the first time. From there, it was drawing from Irish culture and those stories to build it out and make it a big thing.” The movie is going to blend thriller, fantasy, and horror genres.
Next, the Superman movie logo takes the screen. It is bright red and yellow, joined by the classic Superman theme song. James Gunn sent a video from the set of Superman, standing behind sets to record it. It’s not revealing anything about the movie, just yet. He highlights Superman being his and Peter Safran’s “first feature production” since becoming co-CEOs of Superman. “I can’t wait to be there in Vegas with all of you next year as we kick off the summer of Superman,” Gunn said. “I also wanted to thank all of you for your efforts for making Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 a hit.” To discuss the Superman documentary about the life of Christopher Reeves, Gunn introduces Peter Safran to the stage from his video.
Safran walks out with the new Superman logo still on the screen.” Thanks so much for inviting all of us back,” Safran said. “It’s our job at DC Studios to make movies worth that experierence…sweeping audiences into the skies with Superman.” He uses this to transition into a first look at the trailer for Superman: A Christopher Reeves Story.
Horizon: An American Saga is the next title. Kevin Costner says it spoke to him, with a great deal of drama stemming from American’s moving west and using resourcefulness to take land and create opportunities for their own futures. It will be a two-part saga. He says the pair are “journey movies,” rather than singular plot movies. “Horizon is a journey,” he says. “It covers about 12 years. It doesn’t really deal with the Civil War but it starts before the Civil War and runs through it.”
The next title is Mickey 17. Mickey sees a character who gets a job which demands its employees “to die for a living.” Bong Joon-ho takes the stage to discuss the film. It is his first time at CinemaCon. “It’s based on a sci-fi novel called Mickey 7 but we made it Mickey 17,” Joon-ho said. “The number I the number of times he dies. I kill him ten times more…It’s a sci-fi movie but this is just a human story.” He says the movie is about a simple man who ultimately ends up saving the world, making it “a very strange type of hero’s journey.” Joon-ho doesn’t feel like he would make such a story if it were typical, so he found a strange way into it. A trailer is introduced, loaded with hugely entertaining footage where Pattinson’s Mickey dies over and over again until a pair of Mickey’s are alive. A dilemma is present, as the manufacturers want both of them killed off and they seem to be on each other’s nerves quite a bit. It’s a rich, original, and impressively-textured world.
“He’s my hero,” Pattinson said of Joon-ho. He was told the part would be impossible. “Read the script and just thought it was one of the most unusual, funny, bizarre, beautiful sci-fi scripts I’d ever read in my life.”
M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap is up next. “Imagine you guys are the characters in a movie and you guys come to a concert…and the lights go down and you came to see this singer who appears on stage…” Shymalan says, as all of that happens in the room. A singer starts performing in the dark room with the only light being a spotlight on her. “And as you guys are the characters in this wonderful concert…something terrible happens and that’s the thriller part!” He introduces the trailer for Trap.
The next title is Bettlejuice Beetlejuice, which has 2024 A.D. written under its logo on the screen. Footage plays at the event, looking back at the original film. Michael Keaton Willem Dafoe (plays Wolf Jackson, Jenna Ortega plays Astrid), and more cast members share their praise for Tim Burton. “It has to be done as close to the way we did it the first time,” Keaton said. Justin Theroux compares it to going into the museum of Tim’s mind. Loads of practical effects, from exploding stomachs to costumes and prosthetics flash acoss the screen. Tim Burton, through nine movies at Warner Bros, have won 8 Oscars and made more than $5.4 billion at the box office. Beetlejuice Beetljuice will be his 10th movie with WB.
Katherine O’Hara and Tim Burton take the stage, along with Monica Belluccia, Justin Theroux, and Willem Dafoe. Finally, Beetlejuice himself takes the stage, Michael Keaton. “I started thinking about it in the sense of the first one, I really identified with the Lydia charqacter being a weird teenager and then over the years, what happens to people?” Burton said. “We get to see three generations of Deetz women…I just got really interested in that.”
“Him and I would kick the notion of it around,” Keaton said. Every few years they would discuss a Bettlejuice sequel. “The time was right but also the script was. It’s a very difficult thing to write. Then, frankly, I just kind of follow his lead. I’ll tell ya this though. It’s really f-cking good. In fact, it’s great.”
O’Hara opens up about returning. She wondered if the film would be made without her. “To get the call from Tim was delightful,” she said, sharing her excitement in hearing about what has happened with the characters and how they’ve evolved. “It’s just thrilling.” Keaton says there is no sequel without Katherine.”
“I remember very well when I saw it and it’s a really pleasure to join them on this and also to see them build on something made so many years ago,” Dafoe said. “It was beautiful with so many handmade effects.” Theroux won’t talk about his Rory character yet but compliments the visual feast on set. Burton introduces a new trailer piece for the film. Winona Ryder has to bring Bettlejuice back by saying his name three times, with his first line being, “The juice is loose!” This is followed by him appearing behind her to promise, “I’m gonna make you so happy!” All sorts of creatures and terrors and chaos follow.
The last title will be Joker Folie A Deux. Todd Philllips takes the stage.” The truth is, the year of Joker had came out, I had planned to come out here…I did want to say ‘Thank you,’ to you guys,” he said. “About a month before the film came out, the narrative on the film really turned and there starting being a warning on the movie, and the exhibitors didn’t budge…I wanna thank you guys.”
In regards to continuing the story: “Joaquin and I, while we were shooting the movie, always talked about making a sequel,” he revealed. “We were never really serious and we also didn’t want to jinx the movie. When the movie became such a big success and Joaquin and I were talking through the pandemic…we just decide to revisit it and we had a blast doing it.” He is asked about Lady Gaga’s casting. “Gaga, we cast Gaga because she’s magic, right? I was a producer on A Star Is Born…that was the first time I’d really met her and got to watch her work and I was like Wow, she has magic in her.’”
Is it a musical? “We’ve never really talked about it like that but it’s a movie where music is an essential element and, to me, it doesn’t veer to far from the first film,” he said. “Yeah, Arthur is weird and aloof…but he has music in him…it informed a lot of the dancing in the first film…It didn’t seem like tjhat big of a step, what we did here. It’s different but it’ll make sense.”
The first trailer for the film plays, talking about and using music right away. Arthur is imprisoned and Gaga’s Harley is introduced quite quickly in it. Rather than stand up comedy, Arthur is performing music this time around. The two want to escape together, doing musical theater performances in front of a moon and skyline stage before it cuts to them dancing tin the streets.
The panel concludes with a peek at 2025. Jack Black sends a video from the set of Minecraft. He has a wood block in his hand and makes a cheesy joke about it. “This movie is like a creeper explosion of Minecraft goodness,” he says. He drops a bunch of Minecraft keywords before tossing it to Anne Hatheway and Ewan McGregor, who thank exhibitors for their work. David Corenswet and Racehl Brosnahan send a video from the set of Superman, not wearing costumes but an Eagles shirt. They confirm there will be a man in a cape. Maggie Gyllenhaal sends a video from the set of The Bride! Final Destination Bloodlines. Ryan Coogler sends a video from the set of his vampire movie with Michael B. Jordan.
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