A CinemaCon 2025 Scorecard and the 45-Day Window of it All
Issue No. 43: Viva Las Veg-ASS.
Spending four days in Las Vegas is a journey.
Attending CinemaCon while in Las Vegas is an adventure.
I went on a journey and an adventure this past week for the annual convention where theater owners from across the country gather to get swooned by the studios with presentations filled with bells, whistles, movie stars, and in the case of Paramount Pictures, motorcycle stunt shows.
CinemaCon is essentially about the bottom line. It’s the largest intersection of art and commerce. It’s a conference that aims to preserve the movie-going experience in an age when the convenience of streaming eclipses stepping foot into a theater. CinemaCon is when studios like Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, and Walt Disney Studios swoon theater owners from Cinema United (formerly NATO) and telling them “Please put our movie on as many of your screens as possible.”
There’s a hefty gift bag of movie treats as well as theater biz sessions and talks as well as a trade show floor of the latest theater equipment and movie concessions — where you can sample A LOT of food.
CinemaCon feels like a big Hollywood event mixed in with the essence of a corporate conference a la “The Convention” episode of The Office.
One of the themes spilling over from last year was the preservation of the movie-going experience. With Sean Baker’s call-to-action “Save the Cinema” Oscar acceptance speech fresh in our mind, NEON was on hand to present trailers for The Life of Chuck starring Thomas Hiddleston as well as the Sundance thriller Together starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie. Angel Studios, which specializes in faith-based films, was also on hand for a presentation.
There were numerous presentations and speeches about the value of the theater-going experience. A lot of it was stuff I’ve heard before. It was a lot of: “Nothing compares to being in a theater and watching a movie in person!”
It wasn’t until CEO of Cinema United, Michael O’Leary took the stage and started to wax poetic about theatrical windows. This was something very specific — and very important — for the livelihood of a film. He didn’t necessarily take jabs at the streaming industry. Instead, he blatantly called out how theatrical windows have become so short and inconsistent, causing confusion among moviegoers. There is a perception of “I’ll just wait to watch it because it will be on [INSERT NAME OF STREAMING PLATFORM HERE] soon”.
O’Leary said it “undercuts the sustainability of the entire industry by negatively impacting the frequency with which movie fans go to the theater.” Post COVID, comparing United States theatrical windows to other parts of the world, O’Leary said we can see the impact of box office recovery throughout the world — and the U.S. isn’t doing too hot.
”Countries with longer windows are having a more vibrant and successful recovery than we are here in the United States,” he said. “Shorter windows reduce the number of people that head to the theater in the opening weeks of release. It hits our bottom line, and it undermines the ability of medium or smaller budget films, which are so important to build an audience or even get off the ground.”
He started to bring out receipts, comparing the box office results of the top 100 films per year, pre- and post-pandemic. There is a 10% decline in terms of box office for the top 20 movies. The decline for the next 80 movies — which are small and medium-sized films it declined by a full 32%. 49 days was the relevant window post-pandemic for the top 20 movies and yet for the next 80 the window dropped to 31 days.
“The corresponding drop in box office isn't surprising when you look at these numbers,” he said. “If we had the ability to limit the decline of those 80 movies to the same 10% decline as the top 20, it would add an additional billion dollars to the annual box office. “
“Shorter windows also undermine the long-term viability of the exhibition industry, and every stakeholder needs a vibrant network of theaters to make their business models work,” O'Leary continued. He went on to say that shortening the windows for small and medium-sized movies creates the impression that the only reason to go to the theater is to see the big blockbusters.
"Eventually the very network that you need to promote and make those blockbusters successful will atrophy,” he explained. “We cannot sacrifice long-term success for short-term gain…Gone are the days of the minimum 90-day theatrical window for all movies, and we understand the desire for flexibility to shift movies that have maximized their theatrical performance to other platforms and recoup the investment, but there must be a baseline, and for most movies, the ultimate box office success and consumer demand cannot be effectively determined short of a 45-day window.”
O’Leary said a lot of good juicy nuggets and whether or not any of it will stick is another story. “The goal is to make the pie bigger for everyone,” he said.
There were tons of films presented during my four days at CinemaCon. Some of them were just mentioned briefly, while others had elaborate presentations.
I decided to take note of as many films as possible and do my due diligence in assessing them to get a read on where Hollywood is at with storytelling and — GASP! — diversity. Because let’s face it, there were so many white male execs taking that stage to talk (except a peppering of women — shout out to Donna Langley from Universal and that stunning cream suit) that I couldn’t help but examine Hollywood’s zeitgeist and how it serves as a marker of the socio-political landscape — not only with the people, but with the stories being told.
When assessing the films I looked at the following:
♻️ Based on existing film or TV franchise
🫶🏾 POC director
🚺 Female director
🏳️🌈 LGBTQ narratives
📚 Based on literature, person, or other medium
💰 Box office monster (in the top 25 highest grossing film franchises of all time)
🎬 High grossing director (in the top 25 highest grossing directors of all time)
🏆 Possible awards season contender
✅ I’m interested in watching (in a theater, or course!)
And this is how the studio slates measured up:
Sony Pictures
♻️ Anaconda
♻️ 28 Years Later
♻️🫶🏾🚺✅ 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
♻️💰🏆 ✅ Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse
📚🏆 ✅ Caught Stealing
♻️ Untitled Resident Evil Movie
🫶🏾✅ A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
🫶🏾 GOAT
♻️ Insidious 6
♻️ 🚺 ✅ I Know What You Did Last Summer
🫶🏾📚 Klara and the Sun
🫶🏾 Grandgear
The Breadwinner
♻️ Jumanji 4
♻️ Starship Troopers
♻️ The Legend of Zelda
♻️ Karate Kid Legends
♻️💰✅ Spider-man: Brand New Day
♻️🏆 Four-Part Beatles Film Series
Lionsgate
♻️💰 Ballerina
📚🎬 The Long Walk
♻️💰📚 🎬The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
♻️📚 American Psycho
♻️💰✅ Untitled John Wick Caine Spinoff
♻️💰 John Wick 5
🫶🏾✅ Good Fortune
Power Ballad
♻️ Now you See Me Now You Don’t
📚✅ The Housemaid
Shadow Force
Hurry Up Tomorrow
Warner Bros.
♻️Minecraft
🫶🏾✅ Sinners
✅ One Battle After Another
📚 🚺 ✅ The Bride
♻️ Mortal Kombat 2
♻️ The Conjuring: Last Rites
♻️ ✅ Final Destination: Bloodlines
✅ Weapons
F1
♻️📚 Cat in the Hat
Margie Claus
🫶🏾🚺 Bad Fairies
♻️📚💰 Superman
Universal Pictures
♻️💰 Jurassic World: Rebirth
♻️Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie
♻️The Bad Guys 2
♻️Live-Action How to Train Your Dragon 2
🫶🏾✅ Him
♻️Nobody 2
🏆 ✅ The Phoenician Scheme
🏆 ✅ Bugonia
♻️Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
♻️🚺✅ Five Nights at Freddy 2
♻️Black Phone 2
♻️M3GAN 2.0
♻️🚺 SOULM8TE
♻️🏆 The Super Mario Brothers Movie Sequel
♻️💰Minions Sequel
♻️💰 Shrek 5
💰🎬🏆 Untitled Steven Spielberg Project
📚💰🎬 🏆 The Odyssey
♻️🏆 ✅ Wicked: For Good
Amazon/MGM Studios
🏆 ✅ Project Hail Mary
📚 Verity
♻️🫶🏾✅ The Thomas Crown Affair
🏆 ✅ After the Hunt
Mercy
Three Bags Full
Crime 101
🫶🏾🚺📚✅ Is God Is
🫶🏾 ✅ Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother
♻️ ✅ Masters of the Universe
Paramount Pictures
🚺🫶🏾📚✅ Children of Blood and Bone
Heart of the Beast
✅ Untitled Kendrick Lamar, Trey Parker & Matt Stone Movie
♻️ ✅ Sonic the Hedgehog 4
♻️✅ Scream 7
♻️📚✅ The Running Man
♻️ Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie
♻️ 🚺The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender
♻️✅ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sequel
♻️The Smurfs Movie
♻️The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
♻️✅ The Naked Gun
Roofman
📚 Regretting You
♻️💰✅ Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Walt Disney Studios
♻️ Lilo & Stitch
♻️🫶🏾🚺✅ Freakier Friday
♻️ Tron: Ares
♻️ Predator: Badlands
📚🏆 ✅ Deliver Me From Nowhere
✅ Ella McCay
♻️📚 ✅ The Roses
♻️📚 ✅ Thunderbolts*
♻️📚 ✅ Fantastic Four: First Steps
🫶🏾🚺 ✅ Elio
♻️ Zootopia 2
♻️🎬 Avatar: Fire and Ash