Final CinemaCon Dispatch: Amazon MGM Takes Best in Show for Second Year in a Row Thanks to Exciting Slate

Happy Monday, folks!

This morning brings my final dispatch from CinemaCon, but if you’re tired of reading about it and you’d prefer to just listen to my thoughts in the car or on the treadmill, then check out my discussion with Max Sloth on the latest episode of his podcast, Anticipation Blvd.

I also discussed CinemaCon with John Rocha on our podcast, The Hot Mic, and I’ll talk about it further this week with Edward Douglas on an upcoming episode of The Weekend Warrior podcast, so stay tuned for that one.

By the way, at the end of last week’s Hot Mic podcast, I shared the rumor I’ve heard that Paramount’s new genre label — the one that Weapons producers J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules are building out — will be called Paramount Primal. Thoughts? Alternate suggestions before the studio makes an official announcement?

It’s been quiet on the news front beyond Cannes packages — Austin Butler and Pedro Pascal are joining Matthew McConaughey in Park Chan-wook’s ultraviolent western The Brigands of Rattlecreek — though it does sound like Jonathan Bailey (Wicked’s Prince Fiyero) is replacing Glen Powell in John Lee Hancock’s indie movie Monsanto, which will co-star Laura Dern.

Powell signed on to that project two years ago, and I didn’t expect the producers to wait much longer for his busy schedule to clear. I know Powell was recently rumored to star in Michael Giacchino’s remake of Them! at Warner Bros., and I have no inside info on that one, so I’m unable to confirm, but I have heard that Powell is going to produce an adaptation of Emma Brodie’s bestselling book Into the Blue via his Barnstorm banner.

Hailed by Reese Witherspoon’s influential book club, the book is described as “an epic, decades-spanning love story that blazes through the worlds of acting and comedy and charts a connection unlike any other.” Stay tuned for more…

I wish I could’ve written more last week, but I was knocked for a loop thanks to a mysterious illness. Thankfully, I’m on the mend and feeling a bit better, and I plan to return soon to write about two of my disgraced childhood heroes, Michael Jackson and Hulk Hogan, whose stories are told — sort of — in new projects.

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