After taking last year off, Sony Pictures returned to CinemaCon to kick off the 2025 edition of the annual trade show for movie theaters. As usual, film chairman Tom Rothman had plenty of barbs to sling at those who would declare the big screen dead, but this time he also had some big promises to help with two issues facing exhibitors: price and windowing.
“I have one word for all of you. It’s a magic word. It’s a secret mantra you might utter during your morning meditation: Tuesday,” Rothman said. “I ask you, why is Tuesday different from any other day? It’s because Tuesday is where the grosses are higher…and that’s because the tickets are cheaper. But what if Monday was also like Tuesday? Or Wednesday?”
But Rothman’s suggestion was coupled with a promise to meet theaters halfway, noting that “cost and windows can work for us or against us” and promising that “Sony will work with you on both.”
“If theaters and studios manage for the long term, and do the right things, the future will be grand,” he said.
Rothman, along with other studio execs like Sony Pictures Releasing President Adam Bergerman, stressed the importance of restoring the length of the theatrical exclusive window after the pandemic pushed it to as short as 17 days after hitting the big screen. Bergerman cited a survey from Cinema United noting that a third of moviegoers in North America said they think they can get a movie on premium on-demand within a month of its theatrical release.
“Such thinking undermines opening weekends across the board,” Bergerman said. “It is important for the future of moviegoing that we undo this perception.”
One way to do that? Make films that can drive in weeks and weeks of interest and which people don’t want to wait until streaming or PVOD release to see. So how about four such films all released in the same month?
That’s what Sony will do in April 2028 as it will release all four of Sam Mendes’ biopics about The Beatles one after the other, starting with one centering Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney and continuing with films around George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon in that order. Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan and Harris Dickinson will play each of those musicians respectively.
It’s a strategy that theaters have seen recently on the specialty front with Fathom’s release of the Christian streaming series “The Chosen,” which is in the midst of rolling out its fifth season in theaters over the course of three weekends.
But this is the first time that a major Hollywood studio has tried this strategy, and they are doing it with four films about the most famous rock band of all time. It’s an ambitious move that could see Sony dominate a single month at the box office in a way no studio ever has before, and it will require the rest of Hollywood to be strategic in how they counterprogram their spring titles three years from now.
The studio’s biggest franchise, “Spider-Man,” is off the slate in 2025, but it still played a big part of the presentation as Tom Holland and director Destin Daniel Cretton revealed that the next Peter Parker MCU film set for 2026 will be called “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” The highly anticipated animated film “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” also got a new release date in June 2027 after lengthy delays.
That means the biggest sequel on this year’s schedule is “28 Years Later,” the third installment of the “28 Days Later” post-apocalyptic horror series from the filmmaking duo of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland. The franchise horror doesn’t stop there, as Sony has resurrected two 90s cult hits with revivals of “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Anaconda.”
But on the original side, Sony may have something quite fresh on their hands with “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” the first feature film for Margot Robbie since lighting up the global box office with “Barbie.” Korean-American director Kogonada helms the fantasy romance starring Robbie and Colin Farrell as a couple on a magical journey through their memories, with longtime Hayao Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisashi providing the film score.
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