I have just discovered that both of my children are expecting me to take them to see The Minecraft Movie on Saturday. I am not quite sure how to process this, so being a man I will simply ignore it and instead keep reporting on CinemaCon. The Universal Pictures presentation was huge, and two parts apparently stood out – Jurassic World: Rebirth and the live-action How To Train Your Dragon.
There was a full screening of How To Train Your Dragon and reports say it took the roof off. The response from exhibitors is glowing and the feeling is that they have a potential hit on their hands.
Universal are so pleased with it, that they also announced that work has started on a sequel already, and they are looking at a 2027 release for that.
Then a new trailer was shown for Jurassic World: Rebirth that featured, at its core, the river raft vs. T-Rex scene from the original Crichton novel. The reports say the scene is tense and spectacular. Scarlett Johansson was also in attendance and she said that their aim was to make the movies scary again.
The Universal presentation also included a look at the Wicked sequel, Wicked: For Good, that showed Elphaba starting a revolution, Glinda’s wedding, the Wizard and Elphaba confronting each other, Fiyero assisting Elphaba, and a glimpse of Dorothy on the yellow brick road. I remember none of this from the stage show, but I had probably switched off by then.
Universal also revealed some scenes from Nobody 2, which followed Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) and his family going on a vacation with his father (Christopher Lloyd). Scenes included Odenkirk’s character beating a carnival employee, a speedboat battle, and a look at Sharon Stone as the head of a drug cartel with dirty cop (Colin Hanks) on the payroll.