“Moviegoing Is Our Mission.” That’s the new tagline of Cinema United (formerly NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners), which hosts the Las Vegas-based CinemaCon at Caesars Palace each spring. So far, major movie studios to take the stage to preview their upcoming 2025 and 2026 movie slates include Sony, Warner Bros., and Universal, which have touted everything from this summer’s Superman and Jurassic World Rebirth to next year’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day on their mission to get audiences into movie theaters.
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On Thursday, Paramount Pictures will kick off the fourth and final day of CinemaCon 2025 with a 90-minute presentation (10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PT), followed by a two-hour Disney panel (2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. PT). Disney’s blockbuster slate includes upcoming films from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and Searchlight Pictures, many of which will be glimpsed during what is likely to be the most buzzworthy presentation of the star-studded convention.
“We are honored to be back with you in Las Vegas at CinemaCon and are incredibly proud of our achievements over the past year, and the upcoming slate of films releasing soon,” said Andrew Cripps, Head of Theatrical Distribution, The Walt Disney Studios. The studio also received the ComScore International Box Office Achievement Award recognizing the $5 billion in global box office Disney crossed last year with billion-dollar blockbusters like Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
One year after Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced that the Thunderbolts movie had been retitled to Thunderbolts* (now with an asterisk), the summer-starting Thunderbolts* (May 2) returns to the Colosseum. The 36th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the final entry in Phase Five, Thunderbolts* brings together a team of anti-heroes with an ensemble that includes Black Widow (Florence Pugh), the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and the Sentry (Lewis Pullman).
Later this summer, another action-packed ensemble brings Marvel’s First Family — Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Susan Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm/the Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) — into the MCU for the first time in The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 25).
The live-action Lilo & Stitch (May 23), a reimagining of the 2002 animated classic about a lonely Hawaiian girl (newcomer Maia Kealoha) and her koala-like pet “dog” who turns out to be a fugitive alien (voiced by Chris Sanders), is also on deck before surfing in theaters over Memorial Day weekend.
Pixar’s new original movie, Elio (June 20), is an intergalactic comedic misadventure about alien-obsessed Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) who unexpectedly becomes ambassador of Earth. The movie’s eccentric alien lifeforms include Glordon (Remy Edgerly), Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), Ambassador Questa (Jameela Jamil), and OOOOO (Shirley Henderson), with Zoe Saldaña (the Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy movies) voicing Elio’s Aunt Olga.
Also coming to theaters this summer is Freakier Friday (August 8), the sequel to the 2003 body-swapping comedy starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. The story picks up years after mother Tess (Curtis) and daughter Anna (Lohan) endured an identity crisis, as Anna now has a daughter of her own (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘s Julia Butters) and a soon-to-be stepdaughter (Sophia Hammons). As they navigate the myriad challenges that come when two families merge, Tess and Anna discover that lightning might indeed strike twice.
Disney also has the TRON sequel, TRON: Ares (Oct. 10), which stars Jared Leto (Haunted Mansion) and follows a highly sophisticated program who is sent on a dangerous mission into the real world, and Disney Animation’s Zootopia 2 (Nov. 26), which reunites animal cops Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) for a new mystery.
From 20th Century Studios, there’s Ella McCay (Sept. 19), the new comedy written and directed by longtime The Simpsons producer James L. Brooks, and Predator: Badlands (Nov. 7), one of two new Predator movies from Prey filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg. Finally, there’s James Cameron’s Avatar 3, titled Avatar: Fire and Ash (Dec. 19).
Disney is also expected to look ahead to its 2026 slate, which includes Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday (May 1, 2026); The Mandalorian & Grogu (May 22), the first Star Wars movie in seven years; Toy Story 5 (June 19), which reunites Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen); the live-action Moana (July 10), which stars Dwayne Johnson as shapeshifter demigod Maui; and 20th Century Animation’s Ice Age 6 (Dec. 18).
Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for the latest CinemaCon news and updates as they happen.
