(photo by Michael Dequina)
While the 2025 edition of CinemaCon did kick off, as usual, with a morning and afternoon devoted to the international motion picture exhibition industry, this was no typical CinemaCon International Day. In keeping with the National Association of Theatre Owners, a.k.a. NATO, changing its name to Cinema United less than two weeks ago, so go the adjustments to their official annual convention. Instead of holding a breakfast event where one award was given out to go along with a pair of addresses, and then a big lunch with more awards and a filmmaker tribute, the two meals were consolidated into a single early morning function. Laura Houlgatte, CEO, International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), served as the morning's moderator. The first speaker proper was Michael Archer, vice president of cinema sales and partner management of the morning's first sponsor, Dolby. He trumpeted both the cutting edge technological advances and continued widespread adoption of their Atmos audio, Vision HDR projection, and Dolby Cinema platforms worldwide. The representative from the second sponsor, Comscore, was senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, who related a number of statistics about the ongoing box office recovery. He followed this with the morning's first award, one usually given during the day's lunch event, for International Box Office Achievement. With blockbusters such as Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Moana 2, it could come as no surprise that this award went to the Walt Disney Studios, accepted by Senior Vice President International Film Distribution, Jeff Forman. Veronica Kwan Vandenberg, president of distribution for last year's winner of that award, Universal Pictures international, presented the morning's second award, Global Achievement in Exhibition. This went to Tim Richards, founder and CEO of United Kingdom and Ireland based chain Vue International, who was able to thrive amid the twin crises of the pandemic and the labor strikes by investing in innovation in technology and amenities at his cinemas.
Handling the exhibition keynote this year was Valmir Fernandes, president of Cinemark International, and he led off continuing a point made earlier by Dergarabedian: international box office recovery is outpacing domestic, with Latin America leading the way. He sees the way to continue the recovery is through the combination of specific efforts from both the studio and exhibitor sides. For the former's part, a supply of diverse wide releases, marketing campaigns tailored to regions, and a significant theatrical window can help the latter, who then can create compelling moviegoing experiences via seating, technology, and food offerings; and enhance their own marketing and theatre loyalty programs. Stephen Basil Jones, executive vice president and head of international marketing and Sony Pictures, delivered the exhibition keynote address. He reinforced and built on the points made by his exhibition counterpart, calling for more variety in the films released theatrically, better marketing tactics, and improvements in cinema technologies and amenities.
With another of International Day's usual lunchtime awards, the Passpartoo award, which honors to an industry executive who demonstrates dedication and commitment to the international marketplace; and International filmmaker of the year, being skipped this year, the final award for the 2025 International Day was the Award of Excellence in Cinema. Joe Chang, CEO and president of the Taiwan-based Ambassador Theatres, received the award from one of the winners earlier in the morning, Disney's Jeff Forman. A tribute video to Chang featuring filmmakers Ang Lee and John Woo as well as distribution execs from Sony Pictures, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Brothers preceded Chang's spirited speech where he reminisced about the impact of watching -- and, most importantly, hearing -- the 1974 disaster film Earthquake and coined a phrase that Cinema United could adopt as a slogan: "Enjoy movie, enjoy life."
Stay tuned here and on my Instagram, TikTok, Spill (user name: @twotrey23 ), and Twitter all week for ongoing coverage of all the goings-on at CinemaCon 2025!
(Very special thanks to Heather Lewandoski and the CinemaCon PR team for all their helpful and generous assistance at the convention, as well as Mitch Neuhauser and the CinemaCon crew and Harry Medved and the Cinema United team)
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