The Movie Report #1066 - April 24, 2020

#1066 - April 24, 2020

ON DEMAND:

• Extraction
  
• The Willoughbys
  

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The Movie Report #1065 - April 17, 2020

#1065 - April 17, 2020

ON DEMAND:

• Selah & the Spades
  

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LeBron James reveals Space Jam: A New Legacy... and I launch Space Jam @ TheMovieReport.com

LeBron James took to Instagram to announce the official title of his eagerly awaited big screen team-up with Bugs Bunny and the entire Looney Tunes gang: Space Jam: A New Legacy.

With the title now official, today I have launched the dedicated Space Jam @ TheMovieReport.com site. As of now, there is not much up aside from my photos and experiences on the set of the original Space Jam in 1995 and at that film's world premiere event in 1996, but as the July 16, 2021 release date of A New Legacy inches closer, expect the site to expand with a lot more comprehensive coverage on the new film, akin to my extensive site on James and producing partner Maverick Carter's first feature film production, More Than a Game.

Space Jam: A New Legacy is set to open in cinemas nationwide on Friday, July 16, 2021, from Warner Bros. For more on the film, visit Space Jam @ TheMovieReport.com.

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The Movie Report #1064 - April 10, 2020

#1064 - April 10, 2020

MOVIES:

• Trolls World Tour
  

ON DEMAND:

• Coffee & Kareem
  

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The Movie Report #1063 - April 3, 2020

#1063 - April 3, 2020

ON DEMAND:

• Disneynature Elephant
  
• Dolphin Reef
  

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CinemaCon 2020: Salute to the Motion Picture Industry

When the National Association of Theatre Owners announced the cancellation of this year's CinemaCon on March 11 due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the program for what would've been the 10^th convention under the name (previously, famously known as ShoWest) for motion picture exhibitors around the world was already deep into production. And so, today, on the day after it was to be presented on the big screen of the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas as the curtain-raiser for the traditional Tuesday morning "State of the Industry" presentation, NATO released its annual "Salute to the Motion Picture Industry" reel online to those who were scheduled to attend.

While the official title of this presentation is accurate, it is more precisely a salute to the highest grossers at the worldwide box office. The key word in recent years has been "worldwide," for the characteristically kinetic and rousing reel from Cinema Concepts (again, why doesn't the Academy hire these guys to do a "year in cinema" montage for the Oscars® telecast?) included not only a number of expected titles such as the entire Marvel Studios 2019 slate from Disney, but also some notable, high-profile domestic underachievers that made up some ground globally, and, in one of the more welcome--and long overdue--moves in the last couple of years, a number of international, non-English blockbusters. As Cinema Concepts has always done, the roll call was done in smaller groups, linked by genre, tone, both, or simple whim. First was the action-driven group of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (Universal), John Wick: Chapter 3--Parabellum (Lionsgate), domestic underachievers Alita: Battle Angel (20^th Century Fox) and Terminator: Dark Fate (Paramount), and Chinese blockbuster The Captain. Next was the "dark phase," featuring Joker (Warner Bros.); It Chapter Two (WB); another domestic underachiever, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (WB); and, in a somewhat thematically consistent but nonetheless odd inclusion for this passage, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (Disney). That last one, I suppose, made for a more of a seamless transition to the mostly animated feature section: Toy Story 4 (Disney/Pixar), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Universal), How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Universal/DreamWorks), Frozen II (Disney), Tim Burton's live action Dumbo (Disney), and Chinese sensation Ne Zha. The next passage was more of a hodgepodge, primarily more adult-oriented, what with Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Sony/Columbia) and Knives Out (Lionsgate), but also inexplicably including Shazam! (WB/New Line). The latter would have probably been more fitting in the next phase, centering on live action family entertainers: Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (WB), Jumanji: The Next Level (Sony/Columbia); and Aladdin (Disney). With the exception of Sony/Marvel co-production Spider-Man: Far from Home, the next passage was all about Disney: Carol Danvers (Marvel); Star Wars: Episode IX--The Rise of Skywalker (Lucasfilm); and The Lion King. This, of course, was mere prelude to the grand finale, which trumpted Disney as the undisputed king of the global box office, thanks to 2019's--and all of history's--box office champion, Marvel's Avengers: Endgame.

Should CinemaCon be held in 2021 as hoped, the "Salute to the Film Industry" reel should be an even more noteworthy one than usual, for it remains to be seen how long the current cinema closures worldwide will stand, and how many more delays and adjustments the studios will make to their release schedule. Will there even be enough theatrical releases, let alone high grossing ones, in 2020 to celebrate? Stay tuned.

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