Michael B. Jordan, Ryan Gosling, and Even Rick Moranis — But No James Bond — Lead Star-Studded Amazon MGM CinemaCon

When Amazon MGM made its debut at CinemaCon last year, it had a lot to prove without a massive track record of success. And after a few bumpy entries early in the year, the studio definitely has proven that it belongs with the success of “Project Hail Mary.” Now it will be touting its “Thomas Crown Affair” remake from Michael B. Jordan, “Masters of the Universe,” “Spaceballs 2,” and more.

In these Daily Dispatches from CinemaCon, we’re sharing the highlights of what we saw, what was announced, what we didn’t, and what was the overall vibe.

The BEST Thing We Saw

Amazon MGM opened its presentation with a gorgeous performance from Jon Batiste alone at a piano and with a beat machine. Batiste is the composer of “The Thomas Crown Affair,” and he set the tone for a big evening right out of the gate. That led directly into Best Actor winner Michael B. Jordan strutting his megawatt star power with a sexy, stylish, and thrilling caper. We described a little more about the trailer here.

The “Spaceballs” sequel is titled “Spaceballs: The New One,” even though Mel Brooks previously joked that it would be “The Search for More Money.” It’s just like the old one, but it’s a new one, Brooks joked in a video (he couldn’t be there because he’s seeing Phish at the Sphere tonight). And in a sizzle, Lord Helmet said he doesn’t just want some of your theaters, he wants “all of them.” “I want VistaVision, even though I don’t know what it is.” He’s even thinking about making a bid on Warner Bros. Discovery. Director Josh Greenbaum brought the original cast of Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, and even the long-retired Rick Moranis were all on hand along with new cast members Josh Gad and Lewis Pullman. And in a funny twist, Moranis intentionally kept getting cut off before he could get a word out.

Some of the early footage, not a full trailer, included a droid that is a cube rolling around poorly, some Harry Potter kids for some reason, and even a Na’vi standing at a urinal and Moranis staring and saying in their native language, “I see you.” This is going to be a fun one.

PROJECT HAIL MARY, Ryan Gosling, 2026. ph: Jonathan Olley /© Amazon MGM Studios /Courtesy Everett Collection©MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection

The BIG News in the Room

“Project Hail Mary” has extended its exclusive theatrical window, i.e. it’s not immediately going to streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Ryan Gosling announced along with Phil Lord and Chris Miller on the CinemaCon stage, and why wouldn’t it? The film has made $525 million worldwide and is going strong.

The long-gestating “Highlander” starring Henry Cavill is halfway through production and still needs to shoot in several other exotic locations, we learned, but they showed an in-progress teaser of Cavill and the rest of the cast doing fight training. The studio clearly expects it to be a big one.

Peter Farrelly’s “I Play Rocky” tells the story of how Sylvester Stallone wrote “Rocky” and charts his own underdog story, and it stars Anthony Ippolito giving a very strong Sly impression. The trailer showed some meticulous recreations of scenes from “Rocky” and Stallone turning down some big money in order for the chance to play the lead. The trailer closes with a scene in which as Stallone is signing the contract, he reveals “I’ve never boxed in my life.”

Amazon also made a big spectacle of “How to Rob a Bank,” David Leitch’s latest action film starring Nicholas Hoult, in which he plays an armed robber in a wolf mask who as he robs has a viral YouTube channel and spouts a Robin Hood message about how the system is rigged against them. Swarming the crowd were a few dirt bike riders and other masked men giving the crowd swag, and Leitch and co-star Pete Davidson were there on stage on behalf of it, and it opens in theaters September 4.

We got a lot of stylized action films, but the one that stood out to us was “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” starring Mahershala Ali and directed by Bassam Tariq. Ali plays a killer in what he described as a “visceral and morally complex” thriller, but it’s much more of an arthouse drama with some striking cinematography that made it look like what Barry Jenkins would do if he made an action film.

‘Thunderball’ with Sean Connery as James Bond 007Everett Collection

What We EXPECTED To See But Didn’t

It might be a stretch to say we “expected” Amazon MGM to have some seismic James Bond news and for CinemaCon to be the place to do it and it not have leaked out earlier (we think we’re a ways away from any sort of announcement anyway based on Denis Villeneuve’s schedule), but we can dream. Turns out we were told “don’t get too excited.”

“Please know we’re taking time to do this with care and great respect…it’s a responsibility we don’t take lightly,” Courtenay Valenti told the crowd of the project. “That film is coming, and when the time is right, we will have much more to share.”

What We LEARNED

Amazon promised 15 films by 2027 last year and looks on pace to hit that. “This is not about volume, this is about impact. We are giving audiences a reason to leave the house,” Amazon’s Kevin Wilson told the crowd, and he even quoted Ryan Gosling’s now infamous statement to a theater, “It’s not your job to keep theaters open, it’s our job to make things that make it worth you coming out.” That seems to be the prevailing message that Amazon does believe in theaters and wants to blend original stories with its deep bench of IP in the MGM library, and film chief Valenti said this is part of a “very deliberate” approach to how they’re building their slate, additionally shouting out the teams at Orion and Scott Stuber’s United Artists about the distinctive flavors of each of those labels.

Other Bullets

• Lord, Miller, and Gosling wrote a “thank you note” to the entire crowd and “gave you your flowers,” asking everyone to pass around the single card and bouquet across the auditorium. It was cute.
• Jason Statham puts way too much honey in his tea. He said in a teaser video “The Beekeeper 2” is “overflowing” with action. The trailer shows Statham healing a wound by immersing himself in bees, and he also kills a guy with a flamethrower turning the tables and igniting it right into the bad guy’s throat.
• We got a first look at “A Colt Is My Passport,” a wild shoot-em-up from “The Raid” director Gareth Evans that is a remake of a ’70s yakuza film. Sope Dirisu stars as the title character Colt. It made “The Beekeeper 2” trailer look pretty tame.
• “The Chosen” finale from Dallas Jenkins is coming to the big screen with “The Chosen: Crucifixion” in March 2027, just ahead of next Easter.
• Amazon gave us a second new trailer for “Verity,” the adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel, a steamy psychological thriller with Dakota Johnson and Anne Hathaway in the vein of something like “The Housemaid.”