CinemaCon 2024: Disney

The final CinemaCon presentation this year went to the House of Mouse, Disney. Once you’re done reading through my recap of the presentation, make sure you go check out my recaps of all the other companies. Disney took down the house this year, probably making up for their lackluster presentation last year.

20th Century: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

“WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!” Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is one of my most anticipated movies of this year, alongside Deadpool & Wolverine. Disney showed thirteen new minutes of the upcoming Planet of the Apes. The footage that was shown (behind doors) followed the main character of the movie, Noa. Noa and a squad of hunters can be seen climbing trees in search of hawk eggs. The squad of hunters find a nest of three hawk eggs, but before they could take them all, Noa was wise enough to teach them to leave an egg to keep the circle of life balanced. When Noa is climbing even higher to retrieve another egg, a mother hawk swoops in, and Noa falls down, only being held by a branch on the side of a cliff. After the clip, Disney showed off a bit of a sizzle reel, teasing the rest of the plot. Noa’s home tribe and village is attacked by another ape clan, led by Proximus Caesar. Left on his own, Noa has his hawk that he has bonded with, and he is out to seek revenge. The movie will come out May 10, 2024.

Pixar: Inside Out 2

During CinemaCon, at the beginning of Disney’s presentation they told everyone that they had 75 total minutes of footage to show. Amy Poehler then took the stage to show 35 minutes (one third) of Inside out 2. The movie follows Riley as a teenager now, with all of the original emotions returning. The movie gets back in the groove with the original emotions, just like the first movie. It is until Riley goes to this hockey camp, she starts to experience new emotions. The original gang has made their own “super high-tech Riley protection system”. It is the way how the emotions put her negative and uncertain feelings in the back of her head. The bottled up emotions will then backfire on the original emotions. The gang wakes up to a blaring puberty button on the center console. We are then introduced to four new emotions, Anxiety, Envy, Ennui (boredom), and Embarrassment. The emotions then start to butt heads, and they set up the lesson of self growth throughout the film. Attendees of CinemaCon have said that the movie is experimenting with different animation styles. The movie is set to release June 14, 2024.

Mufasa: The Lion King

Disney showed CinemaCon attendees a brief look at Barry Jenkins’ upcoming, Mufasa: The Lion King. The movie will follow a young Mufasa and his journey to becoming the king. Rafiki narrates this story, and he describes different environments that we haven’t seen in the Lion King franchise before. You have Lions in the snow, Africa’s swamp lands, and deep rivers. Attendees even said that Mufasa can be seen jumping over fire to save Timon (Pumba is not seen). Attendees also praised the look of the film, saying things like the CGI crew has stepped up their game since The Lion King (2019). Mufasa: The Lion King will be released in theaters December 20, 2024.

Disney: Moana 2

Moana 2 was the movie that ended Disney’s CinemaCon presentation, and they showed a good chunk of footage. Attendees were able to sit through a brand new musical number on the island. Moana and the rest of the island have aged since the last time we saw them. The song goes on to show how much the island has changed since Moana was gone, and as the sequence comes to a close, people were shown a montage on the rest of the plot. The ocean calls upon Moana again, and she even goes to her ancestors for guidance. The anthropomorphic coconuts from the last movie return, as well as The Rock, as Maui. Along with him turning into his eagle form, Dwayne Johnson himself showed up at CinemaCon. Attendees even got to see a live dance performance. Moana 2 is set to release November 27, 2024.

Alien: Romulus

Disney showed off two clips from Fede Álvarez’s upcoming Alien: Romulus. The first clip shows this crew exploring an abandoned. The space crew then finds themselves in a flooded room, which they don’t realize is an incubation room of sorts. The room includes dozens of alien pods that hold facehuggers above them. The android of the group then needs to power down and reboot because of an error. While rebooting, facehuggers are released and attack the rest of the crew. The crew managed to survive with the help of their android after he finished rebooting. Attendees described how noticeable it was how the facehuggers were brought to life through puppetry.

New Marvel Features

Marvel’s main feature this year was the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine, but that didn’t stop them from talking about other Marvel titles. They didn’t really bring up much about Fantastic Four, and Thunderbolts*. Kevin Fiege did however confirm that the two will be filmed for Imax. He also acknowledged the asterisk in the Thunderbolts title. He said that they’ll explain what it means once the movie comes out. Thunderbolts* is set to release May 2, 2025, and Fantastic Four is set to release July 25, 2025.

Other than Deadpool, Marvel showed footage for the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World. Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson is returning, only this time he is Captain America. Thunderbolt Ross is also returning, but this time he is being played by Harrison Ford. The reason he is being recast is because of the unfortunate passing of William Hurt. The footage seems to even address the change, by mentioning him shaving his mustache. Ross is also now the president of the United States, and Sam Wilson is seen talking with the president. Ross now wants Sam Wilson to assemble a new Avengers team, with a new Captain America at the forefront. We then cut to Ross presenting this very plan to a crowd, with Wilson in attendance. The meeting then goes south where a mysterious villain takes over, and they mind control secret service agents and Isaiah Bradley , similar to the Winter Soldier. Wilson now has to protect the Ross from this attack. Marvel then shows off a montage of action scenes, where it ends with Ross telling Sam, “You’re not Steve Rogers.” Sam then accepts the fact, and replies with, “You’re right, I’m not.”

Marvel: Deadpool & Wolverine

What was probably one of the most exciting things to come out of the Disney presentation had to be the footage that Shawn Levy, Ryan Reynolds, and the rest of the editing team put together for Deadpool & Wolverine, for attendees of CinemaCon. Before getting into that, at the beginning of Disney’s presentation they showed a PSA video. It was described as something like this.

Deadpool: “So, I heard Secret Wars is finally gonna introduce…”

*Phone Rings*

Wolverine pushes Deadpool out of frame, looking into the camera: “Hey, bub! You’re in a movie theater, turn off you’re f*****g phone!”

Wolverine continues to curse the audience out, as Deadpool gets back into frame and says that hearing Wolverine break the fourth wall makes his “d!ck vibrate”.

Deadpool finishes by saying, “nice fourth wall break, didn’t think ya had it in ya!”

Now just based on that, this PSA sounds insane. I would really hope that they play this in front of the movie when it comes to theaters. If you didn’t know Secret Wars is this big comic book run that has mutiversal elements, and is a favorite comic among many fans. Marvel Studios have even announced an Avengers: Secret Wars. Deadpool & Wolverine is also set to bring in a lot of the multiverse, and we’re going to have Deadpool tease a lot about Secret Wars. As for the Wolverine side of things, I am glad they are saving a lot of Wolverine for the movie. It seems like Deadpool is going to rub off on Wolverine a bit. Wolverine will start to break the fourth wall with his buddy Deadpool. As for the footage shown, the director, Shawn Levy, told CInemaCon attendees that the footage shown was put together specifically for CinemaCon, and for the most part, it is spoiler free.

Nine Minutes of Deadpool & Wolverine

Kevin Feige took the stage at CinemaCon and talked about the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine movie. Feige went on to say how some movies accidentally can make “crude and rude” popcorn buckets, referencing the Dune bucket. He then says “then there are popcorn buckets designed by Deadpool.” Ryan Reynolds has even already teased an upcoming popcorn bucket.

Going on to the footage itself, Deadpool is now going through a mid-life crisis. He can be seen selling a car to a family, and one of his co-workers is Peter from the previous movie. Peter then takes Wade back to his apartment, for a surprise birthday party. Characters from the previous Deadpool movies come back like, Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Yukio, Dopinder, his landlord Blind Al, and Vanessa. Vanessa was the girlfriend of Deadpool, until Deadpool messed with time to save her. Deadpool’s time travel shenanigans have caught up to him because once he blows out his birthday candles, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) is at his door. Before I get into that, another line that was said in the movie was with Wade Wilson (Deadpool) and Blind Al. Blind Al wants to do cocaine, and Deadpool goes, “Hey, cocaine is the one thing Feige said is off-limits!” Feige being the head of Marvel Studios, and is in charge of the overall Marvel story.

Deadpool is then taken by the TVA, and he meets Mr. Paradox, a high ranking TVA operative. Paradox gives Deadpool the chance of a lifetime, and he is able to hop from his timeline, to the main Marvel timeline (The Sacred Timeline). What’s probably the best joke to come out of this footage happens, when Deadpool runs over to the camera and goes, “Suck it Fox, I’m going to Disneyland! Get f*cked!” Something that I saw this specific attendee of CInemaCon say that there’s this TVA Taylor, and he keeps slapping his butt, and pulling at his crotch area. Deadpool then comes out saying something like, “You’re Taylor’s great, but he’s a predator”. Deadpool is even shown recordings of his past, present, and future, where there’s a screen in the corner, and he goes, “Hey what’s that?” Pointing at a screen that shows Thor crying over Deadpool’s dead body. That’s probably one of the biggest things to come out of this footage. We don’t only have a cameo of Christ Hemsworth as Thor, but there’s a future where Deadpool dies. I did see someone theorize that this could be from a battle in Secret Wars. I think if this scene actually does happen, then Secret Wars would be a great time to do it. Paradox then basically ignores Deadpool’s question and changes the topic.

The last part shown from the movie was Deadpool and Wolverine sitting in a car together. That is where Deadpool basically makes fun of Wolverine’s suit for looking like he plays for the Rams. All he has to reply with is “Shut the f#ck up!”

Deadpool & Wolverine will release July 26, 2024

That is going to be it for my Disney CinemaCon recap! Thank you so much for reading it and choosing me to get your information from. For me, CInemaCon did a great job this year to get me excited about movies for the next 12 months. Make sure you go check out my Warner Bros, Lionsgate, Universal, and Paramount CinemaCon recaps.