Typically there’s one odd duck out when it comes to the movie studios at CinemaCon, but this year with box office climbing back post strikes and Covid, there are no plans for any to sit out.
The exhibitor-studio confab runs March 31-April 3 at The Colosseum of Caesars Palace. For the first time as a combined conglomerate, Amazon MGM Studios will be taking the stage with a presentation. MGM showed up pre-merger when Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdy headed the studio. In previous years, Amazon Studios would confine themselves to a lunch with a reel of their cinematic product.
Last year, Sony sat out, but the Culver City lot which is committed to theatrical will be back this spring on the main stage along with Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures/Focus Features, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group. Everyone will be strutting out stars and showing off reels.
Let the record show that Amazon MGM Studios is the only streamer that has ever participated in CinemaCon. Netflix, of course, has never attended because they don’t book wide theatrical releases, and Apple TV+ has only had a presence at CinemaCon via their trailers for Killers of the Flower during Paramount’s presentation, and Napoleon via Sony’s presentation in 2023.
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“We are thrilled and honored to welcome back all of our studio partners, with the addition of Amazon MGM Studios to this coming year’s CinemaCon line-up as a clear sign of support of the theatrical moviegoing business,” said NATO President and CEO Michael O’Leary. “This powerhouse line-up of the world’s greatest film-making studios speaks directly to the cultural and economic power of the cinema. Our friends in the studios know that movie fans want to see the magic they make on the big screen, and they also know that movies that start their journey in the theatre are more successful than those that do not. We applaud their commitment to theatrical exhibition and look forward to an amazing week seeing all the great stories they are bringing to movie fans in the year ahead.”
“We are grateful for the continued support from the studios, filmmakers and stars, vendors and of course our NATO members, the theatre owners,” says CinemaCon Managing Director Mitch Neuhauser. “We’ve got some exciting surprises and changes in store for next year’s CinemaCon and we can’t wait to welcome everyone back to Las Vegas.”