Sony Pictures helped kick off CinemaCon 2023 in Las Vegas with a fun presentation that teased many upcoming movies, including Bad Boys 4, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, the Gran Turismo movie, and more.
During the presentation, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence addressed the crowd via a video the duo filmed for CinemaCon in Miami, where shooting for the movie takes place. Smith looks in top shape in the footage, and the pair says they’re in their fourth week of shooting.
After Bad Boys for Life grossed $426 million worldwide, it was clear that a sequel would soon follow, and not even SlapGate could stop it. Bad Boys 4 will find Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah returning to direct from a script by Chris Bremmer. Bad Boys for Life cast members Paola Núnez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Alexander Ludwig will return for the fourth installment alongside Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It was also revealed earlier this month that Eric Dane had joined the cast and was expected to play the villain.
Josh Greenstein, the President of Sony Pictures, mentioned they have 23 films on track for the next year, including video game adaptations, R-rated comedies, and more. It’s worth noting Sony never collapsed its theatrical windows, and Greenstein mentioned the business is bouncing back. In other words, no more day-and-date releases. The cinemas are back, baby!
Next, Sony previewed its Gamestop movie, Dumb Money. Cruella’s Craig Gillespie directs the video game-related drama, with Paul Dano in the lead. Gillespie and Dano approached the stage to present the crowd with the first five minutes of the upcoming film. Dano plays a YouTuber who puts his life savings into Gamestop, and Keith, the name of Dano’s character, goes by the handle Roaring Kitty. He encourages people to throw their money into the company, and they change the stock exchange industry. Seth Rogen, Shailene Woodley, Dane DeHaan, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Nick Offerman also star. D’Onofrio and Offerman play hedge fund guys. The film comes off differently than David Fincher’s The Social Network. Dumb Money has a vibe all its own. JoBlo’s Chris Bumbray says the movie could have some awards traction and make lots of money.
The crowd also saw an extended trailer for Insidious: The Red Door. The kid from the original, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), is haunted by “The Further,” with the story centering around him. Chris says the movie looks “pretty terrifying,” but they didn’t see much more than last week’s trailer has already shown.
Next up for Sony is The Machine, a film version of stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer’s famous story where, as a college student, he fell in with the Russian mob. The movie is a sequel to that story, where he has to return to Russia. Mark Hamill is a cast member, and the intro was funny because Kreischer showed up dressed like Disney’s Ariel. He told the crowd to see his movie instead of The Little Mermaid. The film will premiere in theaters on May 26th.
Audiences typically know what to expect from movies based on video games, but the upcoming Gran Turismo movie offers a fun twist in that it’s actually based on a true story. The film follows Jann Mardenborough, a teenage Gran Turismo gamer whose skills won a series of Nissan-sponsored video game competitions to become an actual professional race car driver. The brief tease looks impressive, with director Neill Blomkamp putting audiences in the middle of the high-speed action.
Gran Turismo stars David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Archie Madekwe, Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner, and Djimon Hounsou. It’s set to hit theaters on August 11th.
For Sony’s Gran Turismo presentation, Harbour and Bloom took the stage. David Harbour plays a trainer, while Bloom is the head of marketing who pitches Nissan on using the program to find racing talent. Harbour cracked about the writers’ strike, saying, “Hello, ChatGPT, “ implying they used the AI program to write the movie. For the record, they did not.
From what Chris saw from the Gran Turismo trailer, the movie is definitely not an adaptation of the video game. The film can kill at the box office or play better than people assume, as it’s a legit family drama. Neil Blomkamp’s racing scenes are intense, and it doesn’t look like any racing movie we’ve seen. Chris says the trailer gives the film Top Gun: Maverick vibes, with the studio trying to do for racing what Cruise’s money-printing sequel did for flying.
Jennifer Lawrence dives into the sex comedy genre with No Hard Feelings. Lawrence plays Maddie, an Uber driver facing bankruptcy who responds to an unusual Craigslist posting that tasks her with dating a gifted yet socially clueless teenager. No Hard Feelings will debut in theaters on June 23rd.
For Sony’s presentation of No Hard Feelings, Jennifer Lawrence and the film’s director, Gene Stupnitsky, took the stage. They introduced a clip where Maddie (Lawrence), hired to take a geeky kid’s virginity, meets the kid (Andrew Barth Feldman) by trying to adopt a dog. He wanted to set her up with a dog named Milo, a former police dog addicted to cocaine.
Bumbray says the movie looks hilarious. Lawrence lights up the screen with a chance for the film to change people’s opinions of her. No Hard Feelings could be a significant hit. Chris says Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) subverts expectations. He’s a virgin and a geek but not drooling over Lawrence. He’s freaked out by how free-spirited she is. He’s not interested in sleeping with her, so she has difficulty seducing him. The clip features Lawrence’s character listening to “The Stroke” by Billy Squire, an ace soundtrack selection.
For Sony’s Napoleon presentation, Tom Rothman promised the film would get a robust campaign and release before eventually moving to Apple TV+. Rothman says this movie demands to be seen on the big screen and previewed footage to prove his point. Rothman says Scott has never won the Oscar for best director, and this is a play to get him the award finally. As Rothman says, he does most of his VFX “in-camera” because “he can and others can’t.”
In the clip we saw, the first scene ever shown from the film, we see a battle sequence from the film and – yes, it’s a movie meant for theaters. It’s crazy Napoleon was ever a streaming film. The soundtrack is fantastic (by Martin Phipps) and shows Napoleon’s army establishing an ambush by using decoys to fool the Russian military, thinking they have higher ground. The battle sequence is impressive, with the Russians forced onto the ice and then Napoleon unleashing the cannons, making them plunge into the ice below.
Joaquin isn’t going overboard with the accent or manner and is almost subtle. His presentation is very different in this, disciplined even. Napoleon looks like an epic in every sense, and Scott hasn’t lost a beat. If anyone thought The Last Duel (which was amazing) needed more action and battles, this would satisfy them immensely.
Ridley Scott’s Napoleon will be an “original and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine. While the intention of the film is to capture Napoleon’s famous battles, ambition and strategic mind, the love story he had with Josephine is just as important to the origins and way the great military leader was.” Although the film will feature multiple giant battle sequences, Ridley Scott said he was more interested in the dynamic between Napoleon and Josephine. “You’ve got to serve battles, and action, and sex with great restraint,” Scott said. “Otherwise, it all gets boring. What is it about Napoleon that makes him fascinating? Very simply this: a man who was one of the most powerful men in history, yet is so reliant on a woman.“
Napoleon will hit theaters on November 22nd before streaming on Apple TV+.
Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Powell star in Will Gluck’s Anyone But You, a loosely based take on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. When college arch nemesis reunite for a destination wedding years after graduation, they pretend to be a couple for personal reasons. But through pretending, they actually fall in love.
Powell and Sweeney took the CinemaCon stage and looked gorgeous. The movie literally wrapped hours ago in Sydney, Australia. Sydney said she loved Top Gun: Maverick but thought Powell was Miles Teller until the fourth day of shooting. In classic rom-com style, the duo does not get along in the R-rated comedy. The footage from the dailies promises lots of skin from both leads. The pair end up in Australia, with Dermot Mulroney and Alexandra Shipp also starring.
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