Sony CinemaCon 2023 kicks Off With ‘Bad Boys 4’, ‘Dumb Money’ – Deadline

UPDATE: Sony kicked off the first night of CinemaCon with a taped message from Will Smith and Martin Lawrence from the set of Bad Boys 4.

Smith beamed, “What’s up CinemaCon? We’re glad we’re not there, cause we’re here and they’re paying us to be here!”

“Bad Boys 4 is coming, we’re hyped, excited. We’re in the fourth week of shooting, everything is going to be spectabulous,” he added before bringing Sony Motion Pictures Group President Josh Greenstein on stage. The duo didn’t announce a title for the new movie which sees Bad Boys for Life filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah returning behind the camera. No date has been set for the sequel; the franchise currently counting $840.7M through three movies.

“There was a lot of noise about the death of exhibition, that the future was streaming,” said Greenstein.

“Sony stood arm in arm with you,” Greenstein told the room of exhibitors at Caesars Palace Colosseum.

“Studios that collapsed the windows are now realizing the value of windows and reversing the course,” added Greenstein.

“Now streamers are giving their movies exclusive runs,” he continued, touting that Sony is releasing 23 movies in this calendar year alone.

First film up was an opening clip from the Craig Gillespie directed movie, Dumb Money, about the GameStop stock fever rush starring Paul Dano and Seth Rogen. Gillespie took the stage with Dano.

“Dumb Money is the true story of how the everyday investor flipped the script,” said the director, “A YouTuber comes from blue collar family and puts his money into GameStop stock.”

Dano added, “My character Keith calls himself Roaring Kitty and starts to post YouTube videos…As more regular folks buy GameStop stock, the price goes up and up.”

In the sequence, Rogen, Nick Offerman and other hedge funders learn of the Wall Street chaos after GameStop’s stock skyrocketed due to Reddit.

Other clips showed included trailers for Legendary’s The Machine, and Insidious: The Door.

After Sony showed off a lot of Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse at last year’s CinemaCon, they came armed with the first 14 minutes of the movie.

Pic’s co-director Kemp Powers introduced the movie with voiceover actors Shameik Moore, Issa Rae and Hailee Steinfeld onstage. “You only get one director today because we are trying to finish this movie,” said Powers.

“When I first saw the first Spider-Verse I was working on Soul at Pixar,” he added,

Moore told exhibs that in the sequel, “It’s been over a year after the events of the first movie, Miles is still trying to figure out how to be a superhero. He discovers it’s how you wear the mask that really makes you a hero; the only person who understands is Gwen Stacy.”

Steinfeld added, “Gwen has her own story as well… She’s a character that many girls see herself in.”

Rae added, “(My character is a) Spider-Woman of another dimension; she takes no prisoners, she’s not living a double life — this is not dress up for her.”

In the sequence, Miles Morales retreats to relax in his bedroom, but is son met by Gwen Stacy. She wants to get out of the house, but he’s grounded. “Is Spider-Man grounded?” she asks. The two fly across the city, the animation laden with the same multi-color, trippy style of the first film, interspersed with rough footages that still needs to be polished up before its June 2 theatrical release. They stop and have a tender moment on a high beam. “In every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-man, and in every other universe, it doesn’t end well.”

Next up was Sony Motion Picture Group President Sanford Panitch, who introduced the highly anticipated Marvel pic, Kraven the Hunter. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays the title role, wasn’t there, but he introduced the first teaser which looks to be a winner on Oct. 6. Read more here.

Sydney Sweeney was here today, but not with Madame Web, but the R-rated romantic comedy, Anyone But You, and her fellow co-star Glen Powell. It’s true screwball comedy — two people who loathe each other so much, they can’t resist the other. The pic is set in Sydney, Australia, and follows the two as they go on various hijinks: Sweeney falls off a boat. “Is that a wart” she asks Powell’s character as her hand is in the back of his pants. It’s not; it’s a spider. He hysterically freaks out and strips off his shorts to his bare bottoms. Says Powell’s character, “I’m going to get a drink and hope I never see you again.”

Also debuting a trailer was for Neill Blomkamp’s PlayStation adaptation Gran Turismo. David Harbour and Orlando Bloom came to the stage to introduce the first look with Harbour quipping that his first reaction on being asked to join the project was “How are you guys going to make a movie out of a racing game?… There’s no story in the game. That’s when Neill told me about Jann Mardenborough and his incredible true story.”

The trailer features Harbour’s racing coach character as skeptical that gamers could ever be real race car drivers, telling Bloom’s Nissan exec, “Your kids are scrawny little gamers.” As training progresses, so does Jann, but he’s warned, “If you miss a line on the game, you reset. If you miss it on the track, you could die.”