The studios’ panels here at CinemaCon can last hours. Literally. There’s typically a lot of preamble, an exhibitor honor of sort of a legendary vet before the clips and stars start flying.
But Disney tonight completed their CinemaCon presentation in arguably a record 12 1/2 minutes. That’s because the soul of tonight’s presentation is the screening of their Memorial Day tentpole Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Hence, no clips, stars, or pre-recorded messages.
The biggest news was that the Wreck It Ralph sequel, which is debuting next year on March 9, is now titled Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Last year, Disney employed a similar presentation, but in addition to showing a preview of Captain America: Civil War, they showed off the first half hour of Finding Dory.
Distribution chief Dave Hollis, who appeared earlier this morning speaking about the industry and how it can thrive in a social media environment, touted the studio’s champion 2016 in which they set industry records with $3B at the domestic B.O. and $7.6B global.
They just opened Beauty and the Beast to the largest pre-summer record of $174.75M and it’s the fourth fastest film to cross the $300M mark in 10 days. To date, Beauty has clocked $700M.
“2016 is when our stars aligned Marvel, Walt Disney Animation, Disney, Pixar and Lucasfilm. Each our brands delivered a $1 billion film,” said distribution chief Dave Hollis in his opening remarks. He touted more stats: Disney films delivered A CinemaScore averages and 83% Rotten Tomatoes score. “We delivered what audiences wanted,” said Hollis.
“This is a result of a very deliberate strategy of the Walt Disney Studios… each of the heads of our studios are producers in their own right and produced high-quality motion pictures. We gave audiences what they were looking for,” added Hollis.
Because of Disney’s treat tonight with Pirates, Hollis jogged through the upcoming year’s slate via a slide show, i.e. Marvel with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5), Thor: Ragnarok (Nov. 3), Black Panther (Feb. 16, 2018) and Avengers: Infinity War (May 4, 2018).
On the animation side, Pixar’s Cars 3 (June 16) and Coco (Nov. 22) and of course Lucasfilm with Star Wars the Last Jedi on Dec. 15 and Han Solo Anthology during Memorial Day weekend. The Walt Disney Animation labels rests this year, but returns next year with Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck it Ralph 2.