Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison kicked off CinemaCon’s presentation with a speech to movie theater owners, reiterating his promise that his studio will release 30 films a year if the studio’s acquisition of Warner Bros. is approved.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison said at Caesars Palace. “The theatrical experience is also smart business. Nowhere else can you launch a multiplatform franchise or it that can grow and thrive for generations to come.”
Along with that promise that a merger would not lead to a decrease in theatrical output, Ellison reiterated his promise that effective immediately, all of Paramount’s films would have a 45-day theatrical window to premium on-demand with a 90-day window to its streaming release on Paramount+.
“People can speculate all they want, but I am standing here telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment,” he said.
Ellison got a vote of confidence at CinemaCon from exhibition’s biggest figure, AMC CEO Adam Aron, who told TheWrap that he is a “big believer” in the executive’s promise.
“I believe what David Ellison is saying. I am rooting for his success,” Aron said. “I’m not even going to say ‘if’ he succeeds. I’m going to say ‘as’ he succeeds that AMC will benefit as he proves that he and his team can release the 30 movies from Warner and Paramount that he says they will make.”
But Ellison and Aron’s comments came two days after Cinema United CEO Michael O’Leary reiterated a promise of his own to lobby against any acquisition of Warner Bros., warning that consolidation is “harmful to exhibition, consumers and the entire entertainment eco-system.”
“Further concentrating marketplace power in the hands of a smaller group of distributors that dictate the terms, windows, scheduling, screen-placement of movies, and access to historic film catalogs will have a real and lasting impact on Main Street and millions of movie fans around the world,” he said.
Paramount’s presentation at CinemaCon was relatively lighter on sneak peek footage compared to other studios, though that is to be expected as the studio is just getting started on projects greenlit under current film chiefs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg. Some of the trailers shown to theater owners were for projects greenlit prior to Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount, including “Scary Movie,” “Street Fighter,” “Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie,” and “Heart of the Beast,” a survival thriller starring Brad Pitt as a former Navy SEAL stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with his retired combat dog.
But the studio did announce the release date for one of its biggest post-Skydance greenlights: “Call of Duty,” Peter Berg’s adaptation of the legendary video game series, which will be Paramount’s summer tentpole in June 2028. Another film greenlit after Greenstein and Goldberg’s arrival will come much faster: “Jackass: Best and Last,” a fond farewell to the MTV prank show that will arrive this year on June 26.
Paramount ended the show with some of their bigger swings on the non-franchise front, including David Ayer’s survival thriller “Heart of the Beast” starring Brad Pitt as a Navy SEAL stuck in Alaska with his combat dog, the music film “K-Pop Superstar” set for release on Super Bowl weekend, Johnny Depp’s return to major studio filmmaking with Ti West’s “Christmas Carol” adaptation “Ebenezer,” and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s epic African fantasy “Children of Blood and Bone.”
