Disney entertained the CinemaCon crowd in Las Vegas on Thursday with 75 minutes of footage including big crowd-pleasers Deadpool & Wolverine, Inside Out 2, and Alien: Romulus, and an appearance by Dwayne Johnson to promote Moana 2.
Fresh from a victorious boardroom battle for CEO Bob Iger and on the back of a year when Disney ceded its box office throne to Universal, the pressure was on the studio to bring the goods at its presentation – and it delivered with a rousing roster of peeks at 2024 tentpoles and one from the 2025 pipeline.
Barry Jenkins also appeared on stage at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace to talk up Mufasa: The Lion King.
But the real stars of the night were the upcoming releases from Marvel Studios and Pixar.
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige and director Shawn Levy showed nine minutes from Deadpool & Wolverine out on July 26, after EVP theatrical distribution Tony Chambers and Amy Poehler introduced the first 35 minutes from Pixar’s Inside Out 2 opening on June 14.
Both brought the house down with R-rated rapid-fire banter from Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool (Hugh Jackman as Wolverine made a brief appearance towards the end of the sequence), and family-friendly high jinks from Inside Out 2. Pixar’s follow-up to the 2015 $858m global smash sees Riley dealing with adolescence, guided by familiar emotions like Joy (Poehler) and wrestling with new characters Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment, and Ennui.
To kick off his Marvel segment, Feige had walked on stage to loud cheers and asserted, “We make movies for movie theatres. That’s all we’ve ever done and I hope that’s all we ever do.”
Anthony Mackie introduced an intriguing first look at February 2025 release Captain America: Brave New World in which he plays Sam Wilson in the title role. Footage showed Wilson meeting the US president aka Thaddeus ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross played by Harrison Ford, who asks Wilson to reassemble The Avengers. A brief sequence shows the White House under attack.
Johnson showed a sneak of Moana 2, which opens on November 27 and follows the 2016 $687m global box office hit.
The animated sequel was originally intended to debut on Disney+ before studio chiefs switched it to a theatrical release in a sign they are now on board, like much of Hollywood, with the notion that theatrical distribution can drive engagement on the streaming platform.
In what was described as a surprise, Johnson was presented with NATO’s Spirit Of The Industry Award. He did not look surprised.
Jenkins showed brief first footage from his holiday season release Mufasa: The Lion King. Best known for his Oscar winner Moonlight, Jenkins said, “That was a small film with a massive heart; this is massive fucking film and my job was to fill it with a massive heart.”
Feige also talked up The Fantastic Four starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Eban Moss-Bachrach, and said the July 25, 2025 release would commence production in a couple of months.
In production is Florence Pugh starrer Thunderbolts out on May 5, 2025. The title bore a mysterious asterisk on The Colosseum screen, which Feige said will be explained when the film opens.
Chambers showed a couple of scenes from 20th Century Studios’ Alien: Romulus from director Feder Alvarez (Evil Dead) and producer and original Alien director Ridley Scott. Tense footage recalling Aliens showed colonisers exploring a derelict space station which contains a terrifying entity familiar to followers of the franchise. It opens on August 16.
There was 13 action-free minutes from 20th Century Studios’ Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes to whet appetites before it opens on May 10.
Jerry Bruckheimer sent a recorded message and teed up a trailer of Young Woman And The Sea starring Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle, who in 1926 became the first women to swim the English Channel. Bruckheimer, who has produced films like Top Gun: Maverick and the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, said this was the highest-testing film of his career. It opens in limited release on May 31.
In a short salute to Searchlight Pictures in its 30th anniversary year, Chambers showed the trailer to Yorgos Lanthimos’ Cannes Competition selection Kinds Of Kindness (June 21) starring Oscar winner Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. The upcoming slate includes Jesse Eisenberg’s Sundance entry A Real Pain on October 8, and Marielle Heller’s comedy drama Nightbitch starring Amy Adams on December 6.
Chambers showed first footage from 20th Century Studios’ spy thriller The Amateur from James Hawes and starring Rami Malek. It opens in April 2025.
Alan Bergman, co-chairman Disney Entertainment, opened the session and declared “We’ve got the goods”, emphasising that the studio had made a “significant investment” in the theatrical slate.
The slate appears below:
2024
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (20th Century Studios)
May 10
Young Woman And The Sea
May 31
Inside Out 2 (Pixar)
June 14
Kinds Of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures)
June 21
Deadpool & Wolverine (Marvel Studios)
July 26
Alien: Romulus (20th Century Studios)
August 16
A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
October 18
Moana 2
November 27
Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures)
December 6
Mufasa: The Lion King
December 20
2025
Ella McCay
New Year, 2025
Captain America: Brave New World (Marvel Studios)
February 14, 2025
The Amateur (20th Century Studios)
April 11, 2025
Thunderbolts
May 5, 2025
Fantastic Four (Marvel Studios)
July 25, 2025
Tron: Ares
October 10, 2025
Blade (Marvel Studios)
November 7, 2025
Avatar 3
December 19, 2025
2026
The Mandalorian & Grogu (Lucasfilm)
May 22, 2026
Toy Story 5 (Pixar)
June 19, 2026
Moana (live-action)
July 10, 2026.
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