While some new footage from Superman was shown at the event as the big closer, the Warner Bros. presentation at CinemaCon was surprisingly light on any big announcements or reveals, like most studios do, including for anything about what’s to come for DC Studios beyond Superman - no footage from the currently filming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was shown, nor updates on forthcoming projects like Clayface.
Instead, the studio kept things very focused on the films they have coming out this year, including the reveal of the first footage from Mortal Kombat II - although, disappointingly, only in the midst of montages with other films rather than getting its own focus or longer clip or trailer played. So what did we see that stood out beyond Superman? Here are the other WB highlights from CinemaCon.
Mortal Kombat II
As mentioned above, Mortal Kombat II was one of a couple of New Line films – The Conjuring: Last Rights was the other – tha unfortunately didn’t get their own spotlight during the presentation, leaving us with only some tantalizing glimpses to go on. So what did we see? That Karl Urban as Johnny Cage looks like a blast.
Bringing exactly the kind of bravado you’d expect from Urban playing this role, Urban was first spotted in an overall sizzle reel of WB’s year ahead, as Johnny Cage faces off with Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), with both surrounded by Raiden’s lightning. This sizzle reel also showed the crowd-pleasing moment of Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) yelling his trademark “Get over here!” as he shoots his Kunai from both hands simultaneously in a cool shot done towards the camera.
The second sizzle reel containing Mortal Kombat II footage was New Line-focused, and it’s there we saw Urban speak for the first time - most notably as he yells “I am Johnny fucking Cage!” in just the kind of growling voice Urban’s known for. That was followed by seeing Johnny grinning as he declares “It’s showtime!” Very quick shots of various characters fighting were also included in this New Line sizzle reel.
F1
The first ten minutes of the upcoming racing film were shown, with an intro by director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the latter of whom noted the massive box office of the duo’s previous collaboration, Top Gun: Maverick, before boldly declaring “We’re here to do it again.”
The footage shown definitely had the Maverick vibe when it came to putting you right inside this insane experience, with the cameras locked down both inside and outside the racing cars. An opening race, introducing Pitt’s Sonny Hayes, had some spectacular shots as Sonny and his rival for first place speed alongside each other while fireworks explode above them. These were very exciting, dynamic shots, as we see the fireworks reflected in the windshields of the cars as they dangerously speed along the track.
The Bride!
This new take on The Bride of Frankenstein is written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who said she wanted to both expand the Bride as a character – who only appears in the original Universal film in the last few minutes – while also focusing on what she described as “The punkest love that’s ever existed. It’s like Bonnie and Clyde, Wild at Heart…”
Gyllenhaal spoke about embracing IMAX for the film, noting “We sometimes go inside our characters' minds and in those moments we will in most of the theaters grow [the aspect ratio].”
The Bonnie and Clyde influence was apparent in the footage shown, which depicts the violent death of a woman (Jessie Buckley) who will be brought back as the Bride, as she falls down a staircase and snaps her neck. The film looks to be set a bit later than the typical Frankenstein story, with a 1930s-look allowing for more of those Bonnie and Clyde vibes, including the Bride sporting blond hair and a red dress. At one point Frankenstein’s Monster (Christian Bale) is seen killing a man in front of the Bride, smashing him into a wall over and over before telling the Bride “Till death do us part.”
A final shot, in black and white, has the Bride’s head in a jar as she smiles and says “Monsterous” to the camera.
Final Destination: Bloodlines
An extended sequence was shown from the sixth film in the Final Destination film and it was wild - ending in a hugely gory and graphic moment that had the audience both screaming and cheering.
It’s clear this film leans far into the dark comedy of the Final Destination series, as we see two brothers – Erik (Richard Harmon) and Bobby (Owen Joyner) – go to a hospital with the plan to outsmart Death as it hunts them. Erik wants to kill Bobby, via Bobby’s lethal peanut allergy, then rush him down the hall to the hospital’s emergency room where he will be resuscitated.
Suffice to say, this plan doesn’t work out, as the random room they sneak into contains the hospital’s MRI machine which, in classic Final Destination fashion, gets turned on and goes out of control with its powerful magnet beginning to pull anything metal towards it with Magneto-level intensity - which includes Erik’s many, many piercings, which we soon discover he has in every place they possibly could be on his body.
…Yes, in that place too. You know the one. Yes, you’ll be wincing.
Weapons
Barbarian director Zach Cregger returns with this film, and an early trailer we saw gave us the intriguing set-up, as a small town elementary school teacher (Julia Garner) goes to work one day to discover her entire class hasn’t shown up. It turns out these kids all got up at the exact same time in the middle of the night, walked out of their homes, and vanished. Josh Brolin is seen, presumably as one of the parents of the children who vanished, angrily yelling, “Why her classroom? Why ONLY hers?!”
There was a lot of very creepy footage here, including a sequence where Garner is seen walking into a darkened, nightmare version of the classroom where the kids are sitting at their desks grinning at her and a glimpse of a suitably creepy guy outside in the woods, waving.
One Battle After Another
On the heels of the release of the first trailer for the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson film, CinemaCon had an appearance from stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor, along with the debut of a scene from the movie.
In the scene, DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson is seen alongside Benicio del Toro’s character. Bob’s making a call to someone and he’s a mess while doing it, as he demands to know the rendezvous point to meet up with his daughter. Bob keeps trying to get the guy on the call to help him, even though he doesn’t have all the right information, explaining he used to be part of their same revolutionary group decades before, but “The only problem is I fried my brain since then. I’ve abused drugs and alcohol for 30 years now. I’m a drug and alcohol lover. “
It’s a very funny scene, and the whole time Bob is nearly out of control, del Toro’s character is calmly walking around the apartment they’re in, before picking up and loading a rifle.
A closing montage includes del Toro describing someone as having ““No fear! He’s like Tom Fucking Cruise!” while Sean Penn’s character, asked about a rival, says his response is “I would say they were a liar who has no business in society.”
Warner Bros. Animation / Dynamic Duo / The Cat in the Hat
There was also a section of the WB presentation focused on Warner Bros. Animation, which felt awkward, timing-wise, given the studio notoriously would not release and sold off two recent Looney Tunes Projects - The Day the Earth Blew Up and Coyote vs. Acme.
Yet despite that, amongst the upcoming films WB Animation said they were working on, one was simply titled Looney Toons, though no details on it were given beyond the title card. Their slate also includes a new Tom and Jerry movie, Emily the Strange and Meet the Flintstones. The latter did have some footage included in a sizzle reel, as computer-animated versions of Fred and Barney are seen in a car chase sequence (their feet will get a workout!) that includes a shot that was an homage to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, with Fred and Barney in place of the car attendants as their car jumps over a hill.
Also shown in extremely quick sizzle reel form was the first footage from Dynamic Duo, the upcoming DC project focused on Robins Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. There was a quick shot of characters seen from behind that were likely Dick and Jason on a subway, but even these tiny glimpses looked very fascinating visually. You can see the mixture of puppetry and animation the filmmakers are using, with lots of shadows incorporated - it was very moody and atmospheric.
The main focus of WB Animation’s segment at CinemaCon was for their new Cat in the Hat film, starring Bill Hader as the voice of the Cat. WB Animation’s Bill Damaschke noted this film will launch their “Suesseverse” (they also have Oh, the Places You’ll Go in the works). The early trailer we saw kind of feels like a twist on Monsters, Inc, with the Cat in the Hat working for a larger organization who brings imagination to kids. At one point, we see Thing 1 and Thing 3 standing next to each other. That’s right Thing 3, not Thing 2 - because we then get the reveal of a giant group of Things with different numbers on their shirts, all having invaded a suburban home.
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