{"id":611124,"date":"2026-04-16T17:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611124\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:08:08","slug":"the-5-coolest-genre-moments-at-universals-cinemacon-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/611124\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Coolest Genre Moments at Universal’s CinemaCon Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Universal Pictures is known for its monsters, and there were lots of them during the company\u2019s 2026 CinemaCon panel. However, it wasn\u2019t those monsters<\/a>. No Brendan Fraser returning for<\/a> The Mummy, unfortunately. That\u2019ll be next year. Instead, there was a slew of very awesome-looking sci-fi and horror projects that really piqued our interest, in addition to Steven Spielberg\u2019s Disclosure Day<\/a>, of course.<\/p>\n

Below, here are the five best genre moments at the panels.<\/p>\n

Minions & Monsters is about WHAT? <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like the Minions. They were just never my thing. So, when footage began playing for the new movie, Minions & Monsters, I started to zone out. But then I realized this was different. This Minion movie is a period piece. It\u2019s set in the 1920s. And it\u2019s about movies themselves.<\/p>\n

Yes, in Minions & Monsters, the Minions come to Hollywood of the 1920s and become major movie stars thanks to a studio head (voiced by Jeff Bridges) and a director (voiced by Christoph Waltz) taking notice of them. But, soon, sound becomes part of the medium, and the Minions can\u2019t speak. So their careers are over. Unless they make their own movie. And that movie is called Minions & Monsters.<\/p>\n

Yes, Minions & Monsters\u00a0is about the Minions making a movie called Minions & Monsters.\u00a0And, all of a sudden, we\u2019re kind of interested. It\u2019s out July 1.<\/p>\n

Robert Eggers\u2019 Werwulf is going to be sick <\/p>\n

The Universal panel also had a section for Focus Features, and that contained the first teaser for the highly anticipated new film from Robert Eggers. And, if you\u2019ve seen an Eggers movie, you realize trying to describe it is kind of difficult. There\u2019s fire and woods and close-ups of people scared. At one point, Willem Dafoe sets a trap in a snowy forest trying to catch what he calls a beast. We then see shots of Aaron Taylor-Johnson starting what looks like is going to be a werewolf transformation for the ages. One that rivals Rick Baker\u2019s in An American Werewolf in London. It\u2019s Gothic, it\u2019s dark, it\u2019s gonna be awesome. It\u2019ll be out at Christmas.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re scared of Other Mommy <\/p>\n

Who doesn\u2019t love Jessica Chastain? Wouldn\u2019t you trust Jessica Chastain? That\u2019s exactly the problem in the new film from Blumhouse, Other Mommy, which is about a family dealing with a monster who looks exactly like their mom. The way Chastain plays both roles and does her best to trick her husband and daughter was seriously creepy. It\u2019s coming on October 9.<\/p>\n

Violent Night 2 is set in a mall <\/p>\n

That Violent Night 2 is happening at all is simply a win. And now, we have an idea of what it\u2019s about. A new villain (Jared Harris) somehow gets Santa (David Harbour) on the Naughty List, and he ends up at a shopping mall looking for the meaning of Christmas. There, he\u2019s attacked by Harris and his goons, and all manner of mall mayhem ensues. One particularly gross moment saw Santa use a gingerbread man cookie cutter against a man\u2019s forehead.<\/p>\n

Oh. Then Kristen Bell shows up as Mrs. Claus, and she\u2019s got a giant sword and helps him save Christmas. It\u2019s out on December 4.<\/p>\n

Lending a hand to The Odyssey <\/p>\n

Christopher Nolan was also on hand at the panel to showcase The Odyssey, which is out July 17. However, most of what he showed was something fans had already seen\u2014the Trojan Horse scene. Bookending that, though, were a few short, new scenes, including Odysseus (Matt Damon) talking to Calypso (Charlize Theron) about how long he\u2019s been missing, and then a montage of other action scenes ending with a shot of a giant hand sweeping through the shot. We think it has to be Polyphemus, the famous cyclops from Homer\u2019s tale. We can\u2019t wait to see that, in full IMAX, in just a few months.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Universal Pictures is known for its monsters, and there were lots of them during the company\u2019s 2026 CinemaCon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,263202,134,344,20263,30335,296972,296973],"class_list":{"0":"post-611124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cinemacon","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-other-mommy","14":"tag-the-odyssey","15":"tag-violent-night-2","16":"tag-werwulf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}