By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is dealing with the reality of making his friends forget his identity in the upcoming “Spider-Man” movie.
Sony Pictures unveiled new footage from “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” Monday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, in which Zendaya’s character MJ apparently has a boyfriend.
Five years after “Spider-Man: No Way Home” became a sensation in theaters, earning over $1.9 billion worldwide thanks in part to the appearance of past Spider-Men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, the webslinger’s fourth standalone movie is one of the most hotly anticipated of the summer. Its trailer already broke records, with over 1 billion views in its first four days.
Tom Holland, in a video message, told the exhibitors in the audience that it’s the most emotional Spider-Man movie yet, and “the most grown-up.” He introduced an early scene in the new film showing the aftermath of his decision at the end of “No Way Home.” In the sequence, he attends a housewarming party for MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned and introduces himself as “Maynard … just a neighbor from across the hall.”
Destin Daniel Cretton, who made the Marvel movie “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” stepped in to direct this newest “Spider-Man,” which opens in theaters on July 31.
Sony Pictures has for years kicked off the annual conference and trade show for movie theater owners, where throughout the week Hollywood’s major studios bring out stars and new footage hoping to wow the people putting their films on the big screen. The studio announced the development of an R-rated adaptation of the video game “Bloodborne,” and the release date of “Godzilla Minus One” director Takashi Yamazaki’s English language debut, “Grand Gear,” which will begin filming soon. It’s scheduled to hit theaters on Feb. 18, 2028.
They also debuted new footage from the “Spider-Verse” finale, revealed the title of the next “Jumanji” movie — “Open World” — previewed “Weapons” filmmaker Zach Cregger’s “Resident Evil,” and gave the audience a first look at Jeremy Strong playing Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning,” a companion piece to “The Social Network.”
Oscar-winner Mikey Madison (“Anora”) plays Facebook engineer Frances Haugen and Jeremy Allen White is then-Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz in the film, which comes out in October. Haugen leaked thousands of pages of internal Facebook records to the Journal, yielding a 2021 investigation known as the “Facebook Files.” The series of stories alleged the social media giant was prioritizing profits over safety and hiding its own research from investors and the public.
“It was time to say more,” said Sorkin, who described this film as “a real David and Goliath story.”
In the footage, Strong’s Zuckerberg quips that he’s “a professional defendant” and pushes back on an adviser saying, “I’m not two years out of a dorm room anymore.”
Sony Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman said he believes “it’s going to be an Olympic level movie year overall” while also acknowledging the industry’s “serious challenges” including that admissions have been down since before the pandemic.
Studios, he said, need to deliver a variety of great films for all audiences. He also made some recommendations for theaters, imploring them to enforce longer theatrical windows “even if that means you cannot play every film,” to get rid of endless advertising before films and make going to the theater more affordable.
“I’m not heckling,” Rothman said. “I’m rooting for you.”