CinemaCon spotlights star-packed studio slates amid box-office worries

Hollywood’s biggest studios turned CinemaCon into a referendum on what still draws Americans back into theaters: sequels, familiar characters and event-scale spectacle. At Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the annual gathering of Cinema United drew attendees from more than 80 countries, and the big presentations from Warner Bros. and Disney made clear that the business is still leaning hard on recognizable intellectual property to rebuild momentum.

The stakes were visible in the numbers. Domestic box-office grosses remained about 20% below pre-pandemic levels, even as attendance improved from the year before. That gap helped explain the mood inside the convention hall, where theater-industry leaders also raised alarms about the proposed Paramount Skydance purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, warning that further consolidation could hurt both consumers and the industry’s long-term health.

Warner Bros. used its slot to push a slate built around proven brands: Dune: Part Three, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, Supergirl, Mortal Kombat II, Clayface and Evil Dead Burn. The studio brought Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa and director Denis Villeneuve onstage for Dune: Part Three and screened the film’s first seven minutes for the crowd. Villeneuve described the film as more intense, more emotional and action-packed, and the footage underscored the same bet running through the rest of the lineup: theaters still sell best when the audience already knows the name. The film is scheduled to open in the United States on December 18, 2026.

Disney made a similar case for scale, highlighting a 2025 worldwide box office that came in close to $6.6 billion and saying it had ranked No. 1 globally for nine of the past 10 years. Its presentation to more than 4,000 CinemaCon members included the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday and a push for Infinity Vision, a new certification initiative for premium large-format theaters. Disney also pointed to Zootopia 2, Avatar: Fire and Ash and Lilo & Stitch as major 2025 drivers, a reminder that even the biggest studio in Hollywood is depending on sequels, legacy titles and event films to keep the box office moving.

CinemaCon has always been a marketing showcase, but this year it felt like a stress test. With box-office recovery still incomplete and consolidation fears hanging over the business, studio executives signaled that risk tolerance remains low and the safest bets are the ones that come with built-in audiences.