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CinemaCon 2025 Live Blog: Day 3
This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
6:59PM – Per Mansoor, the opening played out like so:
It began with the Universal logo, then Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, How To Train Your Dragon, Psycho, Jaws, Fast & Furious, Despicable Me, Shrek, Conclave, Oppenheimer, E.T., and Wicked.
6:50PM – It’s time! The Universal/Focus Features presentation is beginning, and our on-the-ground reporter Mansoor Mithaiwala is seated. The event is kicking off with an orchestral performance of various Universal scores. Jurassic Park, anybody?
6:00PM – We’ve got about 45 minutes to go before the Universal/Focus Features presentation! I’m looking forward to learning new details about the upcoming Downton Abbey movie and hopefully getting a peek at Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. There’s also this summer’s Jurassic World Rebirth, which arrived at CinemaCon with this awesome standee:
4:35PM – As a big fan of the original animated movies, I’ve been apprehensive about the How to Train Your Dragon remake, but these early reactions certainly are promising. I highly recommend giving them a read while waiting for the Universal panel in a couple hours!
3:16PM – The consensus is in: How to Train Your Dragon is a hit! The upcoming live-action remake of the beloved animated franchise is drawing some glowing reactions on social media, with critic Scott Menzel calling it “a must see on the big screen” and ScreenRant‘s own Tessa Smith praising how it “has all the charm of the original enhanced into something I never thought it could accomplish.”
2:57PM ET – Hello, everyone! Welcome to Day 3 of CinemaCon. News Editor Rachel LaBonte here and ready for more movie excitement. Most of the presentations are taking place later today, but we do have something to discuss already: The first reactions to How to Train Your Dragon! They’re pouring in now, let’s see what people have to say about this divisive live-action remake.
ScreenRant is coming to you live from CinemaCon! This annual convention for the movie theater industry is a key event for Hollywood – it’s become the place for any studio releasing movies in cinemas to present their upcoming slate, and is often where posters, trailers, and footage for hotly anticipated titles are revealed for the first time.
This year’s edition, held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, from Monday, March 31 to Thursday, April 3, could be especially big. After the one-two punch of the pandemic and 2023’s Hollywood strikes sparked the “survive ’til 2025” mantra, theater owners need to see the film industry deliver some big hits. And the major studios will be eager to prove their 2025 slates have what it takes to revive a box office that has struggled so far this year.
Today is Day 3 of CinemaCon, and the big ticket items on the schedule are presentations by Universal and Focus Features from 3:45-5:30pm local time (6:45-8:30pm ET) and Amazon MGM from 8:15-10pm local time (11:15pm-1am ET). However, ahead of both is the first screening of the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, one of the year’s most high-profile releases. Watch this space for the first reactions from that, as well as SR‘s other live coverage from the ground!
