Celebrating its 100th year, Warner Bros. unveiled a packed lineup of new big-screen movies at CinemaCon Tuesday, from the live-action “Barbie” comedy to Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg’s “The Color Purple.” Remake included.
The historic Hollywood studio used its presentation at the annual Las Vegas gathering to tease a “10-year plan” to relaunch its DC superhero movies, which include beloved characters like Batman and Superman.
David Zaslav, who spearheaded the corporate merger of Warner and Discovery last year, took to court an audience made up primarily of theater owners.
“We don’t want to do direct-to-streaming movies,” said Zaslav, whose predecessor slammed Warner films for releasing them directly on its streaming platform HBO Max – recently rebranded as Max .
“We are in no rush to bring movies on Max.”
During the two-and-a-half-hour presentation, Zaslav and fellow Warner bosses brought out A-list stars including Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.
Out July 21, Robbie and Gosling co-star in “Barbie,” which finds the ubiquitous blonde-haired doll living in a dream-like, pink-tinted world, starting to question her very perfect reality the day before. gives in and travels to real life Los Angeles.
“Everybody knows Barbie, and she’s never been on the big screen before,” said director Greta Gerwig, who drew inspiration from “The Wizard of Oz” as well as disco music culture.
“They built life-size Barbie houses … Everything was extravagant,” she said.
Gosling said that making the film was “like a fever dream”, explaining: “I was living my life, and then one day I was bleaching my hair, shaving my legs and wearing bespoke neon Was wearing a costume and rollerblading on Venice Beach.”
Oprah Winfrey took the stage on Christmas Day to perform her and Steven Spielberg’s new version of “The Color Purple”.
The film is based on the Broadway musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel about black women enduring trauma, sexual abuse, and racism in the rural Deep South in the early 20th century.
Winfrey said, “The reason it’s not your mama’s ‘Color Purple’ – but your mama’s really going to like it – is because the musical factor is so dynamic, and the magical realism is so perfect.”
Winfrey starred in the previous 1985 film, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and is a producer on the new version.
Chalamet presented footage from two new films he has starred in.
He appears in “Wonka,” set for a December release, as a young, idealistic version of Roald Dahl’s famous chocolatier whose efforts to launch a magical candy empire are blocked by a sinister “chocolate cartel.” Has been done
Chalamet described the “bizarre” process of shooting the origin story – which involved “a lot of swimming in a pool of actual chocolate”.
He also returns for “Dune: Part Two,” the second and final part of Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel, which is due out in November.
Austin Butler, Léa Seydoux, Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh joined the cast for a sequel that Villeneuve described as an “action-packed epic war film”.
– ’10 Year Plan’ –
The presentation ended with Warner’s “DC Universe” of superhero movies.
The DC movies, though popular, have suffered from various production issues and casting u-turns in recent times, and have been largely overshadowed by rival, record-grossing Marvel movies.
James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) and Peter Safran (“Aquaman”) were recently brought on board as the new heads of the division.
This year, the studio will release “The Flash,” “Blue Beetle” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.”
Although those films were made under Warner’s previous reign, Gunn said they “lead perfectly into the DCU slate we’re launching in 2024.”
“Superman: Legacy”, directed by Gunn, is already set for a July 2025 release.
Safran said that future DC films would be “vast, interconnected, and full of promise and possibility,” and promised that he and Gunn were “cracking in” on the “universe’s” first chapter.
Self-proclaimed “DC lover” Zaslav told the audience that Warner has a new “10-year plan” for the titles.
CinemaCon, which runs through Thursday at Caesars Palace, gives Hollywood studios a chance to showcase their upcoming films to movie theater owners — with the industry’s biggest stars boosting excitement.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)