Walt Disney Studios is the last Hollywood giant to give its presentation at CinemaCon 2024. Warner Bros., Lionsgate, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures have brought some awesome reveals to the convention thus far, including exclusive looks at Beetlejuice 2, John Wick Presents: Ballerina, Wicked, Transformers One, Gladiator 2, and more. The official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), CinemaCon has become one of the top news events for moviegoers since it debuted in 2011. Every year, studios, distributors, exhibitors, industry professionals, and more unite at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to celebrate the communal theatrical experience and discuss what’s coming in the future.
CinemaCon 2024 is not open to the public, but fear not because DiscussingFilm is on the ground this year reporting the biggest announcements and reveals. From Disney, fans can expect news related to upcoming releases like Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Alien: Romulus at CinemaCon 2024. There could even be news related to Moana 2 and Captain America: Brave New World. All eyes are on Disney now to close off CinemaCon 2024 with a bang.
Exclusive footage and first-look reveals from CinemaCon are never released to the public, so that’s where we come in. Aside from listing huge updates, we’ll also describe all exclusive footage shown to CinemaCon 2024 attendees. Stay tuned as we cover all the announcements and reveals from Walt Disney Studios’ 2024 CinemaCon presentation.
Walt Disney Studios Updates from CinemaCon 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Release Date: May 10, 2024.
Directed by Wes Ball.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
Walt Disney Studios debuted 13 minutes of exclusive footage from Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes at CinemaCon 2024, which established the vast beauty of the film’s rich world. We follow a new young ape named Noa and his squad of fellow ape hunters who climb up gigantic trees in search of Hawk eggs. They find a nest with three eggs for a ritual called “Bonding Day,” but Noa is wise enough to teach his fellow apes that one egg must stay in order to preserve the circle of life. The apes talk about raising these hawk hatchlings as their own in order for them to hunt better with companions who can fly. Suddenly, Noa finds another hawk nest high above and tries his best to make the treacherous climb to retrieve another egg.
When he’s attacked by the mother Hawk of this nest, Noa falls down a dangerous cliff but barely makes it out alive by finding a branch to hold on to. The CGI of the apes themselves is the cleanest and most realistic that it’s ever been in this franchise, with Noa’s fingers looking practically real as he reaches out to collect these eggs. The footage then cuts to a montage that teases the rest of the plot, with Noa’s home tribe and village being attacked by another ape clan led by a prophetic leader of sorts, Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand). They ravage Noa’s village with weapons used by humans of the old days, like electric batons. In the end, all of the apes from Noa’s home are vanquished, and he’s left with nothing but the Hawk he’s bonded with. Noa now sets off on a quest to seek revenge.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Release Date: July 26, 2024.
Directed by Shawn Levy.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
Marvel Studios’ gave CinemaCon attendees an exclusive 9 minutes of footage from Deadpool & Wolverine. The reel kicks off with Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) now trying to live a new life as a car salesman. He works with his former X-Force team member Peter (Rob Delaney), who keeps the old Deadpool costume in his work locker in hopes that they can both go back to crime fighting one day. Peter takes Wade back to his apartment for a surprise party to celebrate his birthday and all the X-Men characters from the previous films are there, including Colossus (Stefan Kapičić), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna), Dopinder (Karan Soni), and his landlord Blind Al (Leslie Uggams). Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is also there but she and Wade are no longer dating.
When he tries to blow out his birthday candles, TVA agents come to collect him. Wade wakes up in the TVA and meets Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), a high-ranking TVA operative who offers Wade the chance of a lifetime. Paradox tells Wade that he is destined for something special and that the sacred timeline of the multiverse might need “some avenging.” Wade gets a complete suit upgrade via the TVA, which includes adamantium swords. The funniest joke of the footage is Wade running over to the camera, smashing the lens with his forehead, grabbing a mic out of the frame, and saying, “Suck it Fox, I’m going to Disneyland. Get Fucked!” When he rolls out with his new updated costume, Fergie’s “Glamorous” plays and Wade starts to show off in true Deadpool fashion.
The sneak preview shown at CinemaCon ends with Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, in his comic-accurate yellow costume, driving down a road together. Deadpool jokes if the X-Men force Wolverine to wear the silly outfit, referencing that it has the colors of the LA Rams football team.
Inside Out 2
Release Date: June 14, 2024.
Directed by Kelsey Mann.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
CinemaCon attendees were treated by Disney to the first 35 minutes of Pixar’s Inside Out 2. The sequel opens with the now-teenage Riley getting ready and heading into another one of her hockey games. She leads a highly competitive team called the Foghorns. Joy (Amy Poehler), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Liza Lapira), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), and Fear (Tony Hale) work together in symphony during these hockey games in order to keep her on her toes and lead her to success. Riley experiences all kinds of emotions during her games as she makes goals and even gets penalties. The world of Riley’s head has changed a lot since the first film, with the creation of “beliefs” now contributing to her self-growth. Beliefs are stored at the bottom of her subconscious where the forgotten memories previously were.
When Riley is invited to attend a weekend girl’s hockey camp for being such a great player, she starts to experience new kinds of emotions that Joy and the gang are not ready to adapt to. Joy has created a “super high-tech Riley protection system” that essentially launches her negative and uncertain feelings to the back of her mind so she can just “deal with them later.” it’s hilariously obvious that Joy’s new system is broken and can only lead to trouble in the long-term, which sets the stage for more trouble to come. The animation of Inside Out 2 is especially beautiful, with the most stunning location being the bottom of Riley’s subconscious where the gang of emotions stores these new beliefs. Each time a new belief is stored, a slik-like string is created that leads all the way to the top of Riley’s mind.
The Inside Out 2 footage shown at CinemaCon 2024 takes a wild turn when the emotions discover a new “puberty” button on their emotion console. A team of mind workers comes in to install the updated puberty version of the emotion console, which puts Joy and the gang in disarray. Another element expanded in Inside Out 2 from the original film is getting to see the emotions inside of Riley’s friends, who all look like Joy and the gang but with different voices and hairstyles. We are then introduced to four new emotions: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Envy), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). The eight different emotions in Riley’s head all interact with each other differently as Riley tries to make the best impression at hockey camp, with her main goal of befriending the intimidating team captain, Val Ortiz (Lilimar Hernandez), making her life a mess.
Riley’s adolescence goes in unexpected ways when Joy and the original gang of emotions butt heads with Anxiety and the new emotions. The new emotions of puberty take full control over the emotion console, which means that everything about Riley, as Joy knows it, is going to be completely different from now on. That’s all we can say without diving deeper into spoilers for now. However, it seems like Inside Out 2 is going to dive deeper into themes of self-growth and how growing up requires change. Other new characters are introduced in Inside Out 2, like suppressed childhood characters from Riley’s youth. Some of them are animated in different ways, like traditional 2D animation and video-game-like computer graphics. This shows that Inside Out 2 might have more surprises in store than some fans are expecting.
Alien: Romulus
Release Date: August 16, 2024.
Directed by Fede Álvarez.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
Walt Disney Studios showed CinemaCon attendees two clips from Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus. We are introduced to Cailee Spaeny’s Rain Carradine and her fellow space crew, who appear to be exploring a mysterious, wrecked spaceship. The majority of their crew is stuck in a flooded room with water up to their knees. What they don’t realize is that they are in the middle of an incubation room of sorts with dozens of alien pods holding facehuggers above them. The crew’s android, Andy (David Jonsson), needs to power down and reboot because of an error. While he’s in the middle of rebooting, standing frozen still, the alien pods activate and release the facehuggers into the water. The crew is then all attacked by a horde of facehuggers, some using their tails to drown people and others leaping straight out of nowhere.
The crew is managing to survive since they’re skilled enough to swipe the facehuggers away with their guns and help each other out whenever one of them goes down. The majority of the facehuggers are noticeably brought to life through practical puppetry, giving the scene a tangible sense of urgency. The android Andy finishes his reboot and helps the team escape, grabbing some of the facehuggers with his bare hands to pry them away from people’s faces. Cailee Spaeny’s character manages to open one of the room’s sliding doors from outside, but only for a limited time. We then see an image of dozens upon dozens of facehuggers leaping out at the crew from a claustrophobic hallway as everyone is running for their lives toward the only exit.
The sliding door closes and everyone makes it out just in time, with the horde of facehuggers smashing against the glass from the other side. However, the only crew member who takes a brief moment to look back is suddenly attacked by the single facehugger who barely made it through the closing doors. We then flash forward to a different scene where this same crew member is about to have an alien burst from her chest. She starts feeling pain while she and one of the other female crewmates are piloting a small ship. When the pain becomes too excruciating, she takes an x-ray flashlight of sorts to check her body and we see a clear visual of a small chestburster trying to break its way out of her ribcage.
When the chestburster starts to make its way through her chest, she falls to the floor which prompts her co-pilot to fall to the ground to try and her. The ship they’re on starts flying in uncontrolled circles as the small chestburster slowly begins to break its way through the crew member’s body. The small alien is brought to life via puppetry, with it coming out super slow and giving the audience enough time to notice the small details in its design. It’s an incredible visual that makes Alien: Romulus feel more in line with the first Alien trilogy than the recent prequels. The footage ends with a montage of other moments from the film, including our first look at the full body of an adult xenomorph, which looks like an actor in a practical suit more than an animatronic.
Moana 2
Release Date: November 27, 2024.
Directed by David G. Derrick.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
Walt Disney Studios ended their CinemaCon 2024 presentation with an entire musical number with Moana 2. We see an older Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho) back on her boat with Hei Hei and Pua, she kicks off a song similar to the opening song “Where You Are” from the first movie. She’s singing about returning to her home village of Motunui. Moana’s parents join in on the song from the island as they show the audience all the different ways that the island has changed since Moana has been gone. A new male character tells the story of Moana’s adventure with Maui (Dwayne Johnson) from the first movie to a group of small kids. He describes her as “the greatest living Wayfinder.”
As Moana gets closer to her home island, her father jumps out to the sea on his boat in excitement to try to race her back to shore. This brings the song to an end. Disney then followed up this scene with a quick montage that teased the rest of the highly anticipated sequel. The ocean calls to Moana again, and she even calls upon her ancestors for guidance. The anthropomorphic coconuts, known as the Kakamora, return from the first film and are seen in action. Moana looks like she’s taking a team to answer the ocean’s call this time, which includes Hei Hei, Pua, possibly a new small Kakmora, and Maui. We see Maui morph himself into his eagle form in the sky with joy as he reunites with Moana. At the end, the voice of Gramma Tala is heard saying, “We never stop choosing who we are.”
Mufasa: The Lion King
Release Date: December 20, 2024.
Directed by Barry Jenkins.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
Disney debuted a brief look at Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion King at CinemaCon 2024, since it’s still deep in post-production. Jenkins described it as a first look at the teaser that should be eventually released. It starts off on a snowy mountain with a pride of lions lying under a bunch of giant icicles. Rafiki narrates this story and describes it as being about a lion “who will change everyone’s lives.” There are plenty of new environments on display, like Africa’s swamp lands, deep rivers, and even more snow. We see a young Mufasa rise from the rocky desert and Rafiki describes him as a lion who was born “without an ounce of nobility.” He will now go on a journey that will see him become the greater leader everyone knows and loves.
The film’s visuals are similar to those of Jon Favreau’s The Lion King from 2019. Except this time, Jenkins seems to be taking the audience to a variety of new exotic locales. The images of lions in the snow are certainly eye-catching. Rafiki is telling Mufasa’s origin from the distant future, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some recognizable characters. There’s a quick shot of Mufasa jumping over fire to save Timon. There is no sight of Pumba though. We see a young Mufasa interact and run with some other lions through a lush forest. Mufasa’s lion mane is noticeably short, even shorter than Simba’s in the first film, which makes him distinguishable enough from the other lions. The final shot of the teaser takes us back to the ice and snow, perhaps implying that this could be the future from which Rafiki is narrating the story.
Captain America: Brave New World
Release Date: February 14, 2025.
Directed by Julius Onah.
Exclusive Footage shown at CinemaCon 2024:
CinemaCon got to see the very first footage from Captain America: Brave New World. The clip that Disney showed CinemaCon attendees follows Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) meeting Thunderbolt Ross (Harrison Ford), who is now the president, at the White House. Ross is asking to meet with Wilson so he can reunite the Avengers with a new Captain America at the forefront. He’s looking to unite forces, but he might have some ulterior motives unknown to everyone else. During a meeting where Ross is presenting this plan to a crowd, with Sam in attendance, a mysterious villain takes over the speakers and controls the minds of secret service agents and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), whom Sam struggles to pin down in a fight.
Full chaos ensues which leads us to a montage of the different action set pieces of the film. We see Sam getting attacked at the White House, using his shield to block himself from multiple Secret Service agents trying to tase him. We see shots of Sam Wilson and Joaquín Torres in action together. Everything builds up to a tense confrontation between Sam and Thunderbolt Ross inside the Oval Office, wherein Ross tells him, “You’re not Steve Rogers.” After a long pause, Sam says, “You’re right, I’m not.” Finally, we see Sam suit up in the new Captain America suit, which is more silver and blue than blue and white.