Walt Disney 2024 CinemaCon Panel Live Blog

CinemaCon comes to a close today with possibly the biggest panel on the schedule: Disney! We are anticipating updates on Marvel, Pixar, and more. The panel begins at 2:30 pm PST, so make sure that you follow along.

CinemaCon reps are running around our press section saying that we can take photos of talent and LOGOS, but not footage. Leads me to believe that we are going to be seeing plenty of cool stuff. Strap in!

Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackmsn kick off the panel with a Silence Your Phones PSA. It had both men in costume (mo Wolverine mask), and started with Deadpool joking, "I heard that Secret Wars was going to introduce..." before a ringing cellphone cut him off. Hilarious stuff!

Disney Co-Chair Alan Bergman now on stage to styart the presentation.

The chemistry between Reynolds and Jackman, just in a throwaway CinemaCon scene, is off the charts!

Disney claims that every film can't be Avatar, but they are investing in Event movies.

Disney posting a timeline. We may get some reveals....

More sequels coming from Avatar, Avengers, Star Wars, Toy Story, and Frozen. All has been reported, but confirmed from the stage.

Disney is bringing 75 minutes of content to us today. 35 minutes of that should be Inside Out 2.

Up first is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The story is set decades into the future, when Apes rule the Earth. We are about to see 13 minutes of footage.

What stands out to me about the stunning Apes footage is how photorealistic it is. Weta is working miracles in creating the ape creatures. They look so real. I also LOVED the footage of nature that Wes Ball captured. In the scenes shown, we watched the main ape, Noah, and two other companions as they climbed to reach two massive bird nests to retrieve eggs. It was like an IMAX nature documentary

We also saw an action sequence where the villain attacks Noah's village, and the devastating after effects of the fight.

It was stunning. Truly stunning. Also LOVED the score. Not sure who did it, but it' gentle and inspirational, and really established a beautiful tone. Looks amazing.

Next is Daisy Ridley in Young Woman And The Sea, about a woman who swims the English Channel. It's based on a true story. Like Nyad. Jerry Bruckheimer produces. It'll be in theaters on May 31.

Inside Out 2 is next, and I believe we are getting 35 minutes of the movie.

Amy Poehler on stage now!

Man oh man, Inside Out 2 is magnificent. Footageh played through the roof. An emotional wallop that follows Riley, now a teenager, who struggles with old and new emotions as she turns 13 and goes to hockey camp. It was wonderful.

And now... Marvel Studios, with Kevin Feige on the stage!

Feige says that they have asked Deadpool himself to design a popcorn bucket specifically for the movie. He looks forward to all of us "experiencing" it, for ourselves. Can't wait!

Feige says they are working on two movie for IMAX right now. The Fantastic Four begins filming in two months.

He also confirms that the official title of Thunderbolts IS Thunderbolts* ... and there will be an explanation on the asteriks soon.

Thunderbolts* is set for May 5, 2025.

Feige is talking about Captain America: New World Order. He says that the influence of The Winter Soldier is motivating Marvel while they work on New World Order. It will be fast paced, grounded, and will focus on Sam Wilson.

And with that, Anthony Mackie is on stage! Feige salutes him. "You should always salute your Captain," he says.

Mackie is showing us a clip!

The clip begins at the White House. Our president (Harrison Ford) is recruiting Sam WIlson to help him re-establish the Avengers, though Sam seems skeptical. During a presentation, then, where Ford is praising the work that Sam did during the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, music starts playing over the loud speaker... and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbley) reacts. The music triggers a hypnosis, and Carl starts to attack the President. Sam springs into action, and chaos ensues!

The rest of the footage was a montage, with Sam saying that the inner circle of the President's circle has been compromised. And it ends with Ford telling Mackie, "You're not Steve Rogers." GREAT footage. It played very well!

The panel is ending with 9 minutes of Deadpool and Wolverine!

Holy shit, you guys are not ready for Deadpool and Wolverine. The footage was incredibly funny. And also emotional. What we saw was an extension of Wade Wilson working at Drivemax, failing at selling cars. He returns home with his co-worker Peter to the surprise birthday party that we see in the trailers. And then the TVA abducts Wade to explain why they need him.

Contrary to what I believed, the TVA does not approach Wade because of the time travel he did with Cable's device. Instead, they need Wade to help them prevent something terrible that night happen on the Sacred Timeline. They are inviting Wade to leave his universe and join the one he has been asking to join for years. The MCU. It's a Meta confirmation of  what has been happening in real life.

To the point that, when Wade accepts the TVA's offer and gets his new suit, he looks directly into the camera and screams, "Suck it, Fox. I'm going to Disneyland!" And headbutts the camera.

The footage was R-rated, raunchy, and hysterical. That movie is going to be incredible.

Next, we are treated to an Alien: Romulus scene. Not a lot of context to it at all, but it involved a series of small Facehuggers attacking scientists in a Cryo Lab. One of the creatures manages to swim like a shark through some water and escape the lab. As the clip ends, many Facehuggers escape and start filling the ship.

We are seeing another Alien: Romulus scene that features an astronaut (soldier? scientist?) who has an alien embeded in her chest. It "births" itself by bursting out of her chest cavity. As all of this is happening, the ship carrying these characters is crashing through the walls of a larger structure,

It looks cool as hell, but damn, do I wish I had some context. We will have to wait until August 16 to find out more.

We have now moved on to Fox Searchlight, where it's confirmed that Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness is heading to Cannes. They showed us the trailer that has been available for several weeks now.

Panel plans to wrap up with Mufasa: The Lion King, which will be a prequel / origin story for the character. Disney shares how massive of a success the live-action The Lion King was, so they are hyped for this. Barry Jenkins is now on stage to discuss his movie, which he admits seems like a strange project for the director of Moonlight to take, but goes on to call this the greatest experience of his career.

Jenkins tells a beautiful story about growing up in 1999, and the impact of the movies that came out that year. He talks about buying a car that year with what little money he could scrap together, and how that fall, he applied to film school. His life was never the same.

Jenkins says Mufasa is incredibly personal to him. Growing up, the O.G. Lion King was a movie he saw 200 times, watching it with his nephews, who were enraptured with it. When he saw the Mufasa script, he remembered watching The Lion King with those kids, and wanted to share a similar message with new kids.

The movie will have "new songs," but Jenkins jokes that Disney is handcuffing him, and he can't reveal yet who worked on them. He's now showing us footage of the movie, which he has spent 3 1/2 years on.

"This is a massive fucking film," Jenkins says, "and it was my job to fill it with massive heart."

Here comes the footage.

Yep, that had lions in it!

Disney is wrapping up the panel with Moana 2.

Might not get footage. There's a title treatment, and Polynesian dancers filling the stage! Spectacular.

And now The Rock is on stage!!

"As we say in the islands, 'Aloha!'" Rock says to greet the crowd.

Rock says Maui was inspired by his grandfather, which is why the movie is still so powerful and personal for him. He promises the sequel will visit new lands, and offer new songs. He briefly breaks into "You're welcome!"

Then, Rock is surprised on stage by being awarded the NATO's Spirit of the Industry award!

Chris Nolan received the first version of this award last year. Rock seems genuinely touched, and talks about the theater-going experience, and how much it means to him. We are seeing some of Moana 2, and that's a wrap.

Thanks for following along!