Christian Blauvelt, executive managing editor at IndieWire, joins Cheddar News to recap this year's CinemaCon.

Between Bells

CinemaCon 2022 Highlights: Jordan Peele's 'Nope,' 'Avatar' Sequel

Welcome back to Between Bells everyone. Cinemacon wrapped up on thursday. The four day event gives us a jump start into the summer season of the box office. It brings together some of the biggest actors and filmmakers to debut upcoming films. Key takeaways included details about the long awaited avatar sequel. And no surprise here, the batman two is definitely happening and robert Pattinson is returning as a caped crusader. That's not the only thing Warner brothers brought to the las Vegas film event. We also got to see footage of Black adam starring Dwayne the rock johnson joining us now to discuss this christian Blauvelt. Indiewire executive managing editor, christian, Welcome to the show. What do you think was the biggest moment from the event this year? Oh, I think the announcement of batman too. The uh, the draining of Top Gun maverick which just drew rapturous response. People are even saying that maybe like a best picture nomination could be a possibility for the time it's gonna be debut. Can well, um, yeah, it's, it's funny, there were so many big titles here and Cinemacon arrived at a moment really, you know, it didn't arrive in donor because You look at the box office in 2022, it's 43% down compared to where it was in 2019 before the pandemic through the first forms this year and so far the box office domestically has made $1.8 billion 2019. It was at $3.2 billion dollars at the same point. So we really need the batman to, we really need top gun maverick, we really need all these things And uh you know, the batman in particular is, is such an exciting one because I mean that film already made $760 million dollars worldwide and it did so without the day and day streaming model that dominated during the words of the pandemic. Let's talk about Avatar because people are freaking out over the new trailer for this movie of course, coming out 12 years after the way of the water. Why are people freaking out here Christian? Well, yeah, I mean it's been 13 by the time it comes out, it'll be 13 years since the original Avatar came out. That was the highest grossing film of all time at that point. You know, everybody always doubts James Cameron, like people even thought the Titanic was going to be a huge disaster before it came out in 1997. That was the biggest movie of all time avatar than in 2000 and nine was the biggest movie of all time. So there's no reason to expect anything less from this film. Um you know, the only thing could be like, have people sort of forgotten the original film, but no, I think, I don't think people will have forgotten. Um it's, you know, the cutting edge special effects, Cameron and his team first 20th century studios, even before it was acquired by Disney. I mean they've been inventing technology to make this movie. So it's, it's gonna be really, it should push the envelope of what we think movies are. We also learn more about Jordan peel's movie. We're huge fans here of Jordan peele and cheddar, the filmmaker revealing the title, nope. And what it means to tell us what the title means here, christian. Yeah. So you know obviously if you saw Get Out or us, Jordan peele has made these amazing horror movies. And the title of note is like he wants you to have that feeling of watching his new, this new horror movie that like you're seeing things that are so horrific that you're like, I don't want to see this. And yet his storytelling is so profound and so immersive. Of course we're going to keep watching to the end even as you're profoundly disturbed and unsettled by what you see in the trailer for this, you know, has already been viewed millions and millions of times and the debut during the Super Bowl a few months ago and it looks really interesting. It's about Hollywood history and uh you know, it seems like, but beyond that we don't really know anything about it even after cinemacon, we still don't know anything Jordan peele is the master of the key. He certainly is, I want to talk to you about a declaration from the ceo of the National Association of theater owners? He said it is the death of day and date theatrical and streaming releases. What is the significance of that declaration christian? Well that that's a huge deal. So like the batman matt Reeves film, uh you know, it made 677 $160 million worldwide without having any streaming component to it. You know, it was 45 days after it was finally hit HBO max and the HBO linear channel. And so to me that's the proof that like, yeah, if the title is compelling enough we can get people back into theaters and so you know, at the time there's always a lot of cheerleading, there was even a chance of we are back, we are back at one point. But you know, the theater owners, Fithian is the head of the National Association of owners, you know, very much against string, very much against day and date. They want to have this exclusivity window for their films to play in theaters first. And the messaging so far from all the studio heads really does be aligned with that. David Zaslav, the new Ceo of Warner brothers. Discovery was all about like now, you know, in 2021. Yeah, we had all of our films day and date on HBO max, but now we're really going to preserve that theatrical exclusivity beforehand because it's great for marketing, it's great for building word of mouth and then when it finally does the title and question finally does appear on HBO max or on HBO, there's even that much more buzz around it. So it's it's it's a really exciting moment for theaters in a lot of ways because even though box office is down Like only 2% of theaters actually permanently closed during the worst of the pandemic. So there is a real potential for a recovery and rebound. Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly, especially when it comes to the marketing. Thank you so much for the context here. Christian Blauvelt, indiewire executive managing editor. Have a great weekend Christian. Thank you.