{"id":385345,"date":"2026-04-18T05:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T05:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/385345\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T05:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T05:22:16","slug":"warner-bros-slate-and-disney-infinity-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/385345\/","title":{"rendered":"Warner Bros.’ Slate and Disney Infinity Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you spend four days in Vegas bouncing between meetings, parties, and trying to remember which movie trailers you just saw, there\u2019s a lot that happens at CinemaCon<\/a> an entertainment business reporter might not get to write about, or that materialize into bigger ideas later on. <\/p>\n

We had four stray thoughts of what\u2019s still to come for theaters \u2014 and what we\u2019ll be talking about up until next year\u2019s CinemaCon.<\/p>\n

Warner Bros. has a lot of movies it would prefer don\u2019t go away<\/p>\n

In addition to a hefty sizzle reel of filmmakers from their sets talking about all the big projects arriving from Warner Bros. in 2027<\/a>, a montage that included Margot Robbie\u2019s \u201cOcean\u2019s\u201d prequel, Nancy Meyers\u2019 untitled film<\/a>, Sam Esmail\u2019s \u201cPanic Carefully,\u201d M. Night Shyamalan\u2019s \u201cRemain,\u201d \u201cA Minecraft Movie 2,\u201d the animated \u201cBad Fairies\u201d with Cynthia Erivo, \u201cMargie Claus\u201d with Melissa McCarthy, a Keanu Reeves shark movie \u201cShiver,\u201d \u201cEvil Dead Wrath,\u201d \u201cGodzilla x Kong Supernova,\u201d and \u201cThe Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,\u201d Warner Bros.<\/a> closed its presentation with a big list of all the projects it has in development for \u201927, \u201928, and beyond. <\/p>\n

\"'Roommates'\"<\/a> \"Anne<\/a> <\/p>\n

Film chiefs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca said that this list represented \u201ca promise\u201d of what they intend to deliver to theater screens. But it may not be up to them. <\/p>\n

Paramount is, of course, buying Warner Bros. Discovery, and David Ellison made a promise of his own to theater owners<\/a> that it would release 30 movies a year between the two studios, so they\u2019re going to need a lot of those movies that Warner Bros. is promising, in addition to their own. Each studio touted that the number of movies they\u2019re putting out this year has gone up compared to last year\u2019s slate<\/p>\n

But we have no idea what that structure is going to look like under a combined Paramount-WBD. Do Mike and Pam stick around? Are they working underneath Paramount film chiefs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein? Is there something that distinguishes a Paramount movie from a WB movie? What about WB\u2019s other labels, like New Line, DC, the newly relaunched WB Animation, or the brand spanking new indie label Clockwork that is releasing Sean Baker\u2019s \u201cTi Amo!\u201d as its first film?<\/a><\/p>\n

By projecting that big slate, Warner Bros. is trying to get ahead of any of these movies going away under a merger, but we\u2019re guessing they won\u2019t be able to keep every promise. <\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Russo, Robert Downey Jr., Joe Russo, and Chris Evans at the Walt Disney Studios Presentation during CinemaCon 2026, the official convention of Cinema United<\/a> held at The Dolby Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 16, 2026 in Las Vegas, NevadaGilbert Flores\/Variety<\/p>\n

Disney\u2019s \u201cInfinity Vision\u201d thing is a big IMAX flex<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to level with you: when Disney announced \u201cInfinity Vision\u201d just ahead of the trailer for \u201cAvengers: Doomsday,\u201d<\/a> quite literally the grand finale of an entire week of CinemaCon when everyone was ready to get out of town, I didn\u2019t make much of it. Some new corporate branding of a premium large format? Sure, just get to Robert Downey Jr. <\/p>\n

What it is, really, is Disney\u2019s answer to not having any IMAX screens for \u201cDoomsday.\u201d Whoops. I figured that out after I landed at LAX. <\/p>\n

Both \u201cDune: Part III\u201d and the next \u201cAvengers\u201d film are opening the same day, December 18, and each has been daring the other to move off that date. \u201cDune\u201d will be the one getting the IMAX screens, which means all the other non-IMAX premium large format screens will try and play \u201cDoomsday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disney\u2019s response is to use this \u201cInfinity Vision\u201d branding to indicate to fans that the version of the film they\u2019ll be getting is the best picture and sound available, that it meets certain Disney criteria for how the film should look or be presented. Will any theaters across dozens of circuits actually adopt this branding? Will audiences have any idea what it is or care if their screening of \u201cDoomsday\u201d is not in Infinity Vision? They care about the IMAX brand, so our guess would be no.<\/p>\n

\"Devil\u2018The Devil Wears Prada 2\u2019 popcorn bucket shaped like a red pursePhoto by Brian Welk<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope Dirty Sodas can save theaters<\/p>\n

In the several years I\u2019ve been going to CinemaCon, I confess I had never made it down to the trade show floor where various vendors gather to present new product ideas to exhibitors that may be looking to shake up their inventory or concessions offerings. <\/p>\n

As part of a tour this year, we saw companies that sell photo booths and arcade games to theaters, popcorn and pretzel snack brands, and some consultants who help redesign the footprints of theaters. There\u2019s also the companies designing ever-crazier popcorn buckets, like the Michael Jackson hat as popcorn receptacle (white glove not included), or the \u201cDevil Wears Prada\u201d red purse popcorn bucket.<\/p>\n

Then there are the tech companies pushing new projection innovations, and let us tell you, only at CinemaCon do you see something as monumentally dorky as a Barco executive asking Air Bud the dog what he thinks of HDR laser projection. Some, like Samsung, are even pushing giant LED screens with no projection booth or projector required.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also food, and so, so many samples, all in the hopes that theaters experiment with hot yet portable food options that wouldn\u2019t be just for dine-in theaters. We sampled a miniature chili dog inside an egg roll wrapper, a baked cookie dough bite, some brisket mac and cheese, and a slice of cookie cake.<\/p>\n

Finally, we came across a small, upstart company called Coca-Cola that hopes to push some things like its new pickle lemonade, a \u201cDevil Wears Prada\u201d branded Diet Coke, and Fanta or Coco Cream dirty sodas. This is increasingly becoming a thing theaters are experimenting with, tapping into the latest TikTok trends to gussy up your pop. When most theaters are already outfitted with recliner seats and bars, this is what it has come to.<\/p>\n

\"LASMichael O\u2019Leary, President & CEO, Cinema United, speaks onstage during CinemaCon 2026 \u2013 The State of the Industry and NEON Presentation at The Dolby Colosseum at Caesars Palace during CinemaCon, the official convention of Cinema United, on April 14, 2026, in Las Vegas, NevadaGetty Images for CinemaCon<\/p>\n

The next innovation for theaters is not one-size-fits-all<\/p>\n

In between a whole lot of questions to Cinema United\u2019s Michael O\u2019Leary about Netflix<\/a>, I managed to squeeze one in there about the challenges facing the smallest: independent theaters, the ones that maybe have just one location with a few screens or in some instances just a single screen.<\/p>\n

The challenge facing those theaters \u2014 and this is not a new challenge \u2014 is if that if a single screen books \u201cOppenheimer\u201d and then, per the terms of booking needs to keep it for several weeks, that theater owner might only see its patrons once a month, because they\u2019ve already seen that film. Or if that movie is a turkey, they\u2019re still stuck with it past its sell by date. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the frustration one indie theater owner expressed to us before CinemaCon<\/a> when it comes to PLF screens they\u2019ve invested a lot of money in, or in any terms that are thrust upon them by the studio. Why do I have to play a kids movie late at night when another film would do much better in that slot? Why can I only play this particular film on my PLF screen when I know another one will perform better?<\/p>\n

Sony Pictures\u2019 Tom Rothman alluded to something like this<\/a> in his remarks, that it\u2019s not just studios that should respect windows, but theaters who don\u2019t give a movie a proper run in theaters before yanking it early, even at the expense of potentially losing another film. Rothman was speaking more to the bigger chains, and when we asked O\u2019Leary, he clarified that holding a movie over for longer (a \u201choldover\u201d in exhibitor parlance) is really only a problem for those small chains that can\u2019t bump a movie to another screen if it\u2019s underperforming and could be blocked from getting something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one-size-fits-all approach doesn\u2019t work when you get down to the smaller guys,\u201d O\u2019Leary said in a press breakfast ahead of his State of the Union address. \u201cI\u2019ve advocated that there ought to be two systems in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Leary said small theater owners are the connective tissue to the audience in those theaters. They know the people who come in very well, and they should be allowed to do what\u2019s best for their audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they have the flexibility to schedule in a way that reflects their knowledge of the film-going community, they can make more money for everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you have this rigid system which is passed through the whole system where someone else can put it down the hall, but the one or two screen theater can\u2019t do that, that\u2019s a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of that depends on the studios participating in finding another model that can work on multiple different levels or tiers and changing a model that\u2019s been in place for decades, but O\u2019Leary said there\u2019s \u201cnothing tangible\u201d just yet in terms of movement on that front. <\/p>\n

Maybe by next CinemaCon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you spend four days in Vegas bouncing between meetings, parties, and trying to remember which movie trailers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6004,199894,173642,156,593,409,111,139,69,5942],"class_list":{"0":"post-385345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-avengers-doomsday","9":"tag-cinema-united","10":"tag-cinemacon","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-warner-bros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}