CinemaCon is an industry event held every April in Las Vegas for theater owners, designed to get them excited to want to book a given studio’s movie on their screens, but increasingly it’s become more akin to something like ComicCon. Fanboy bloggers attend to be the first to see footage from upcoming films, oftentimes months before anything is released to the public online. And we as journalists spend time describing the footage we saw, how the audience reacted, and what studio brass have to say about it all.
Now the movie theaters are doing our job for us. Select movie theaters nationwide will screen some highlights of CinemaCon 2025, a curated presentation of trailers, extended scenes, and other promos that you can watch in your local theater before that footage eventually gets played before an actual movie sometime down the road.
Patrons who buy a ticket (yes, you will have to buy a ticket, more on that below) will see roughly 70 minutes of trailers — not quite the length of an actual movie, but you’ll still need a babysitter — with some other footage thrown in. The content shown is stuff all of us special people got to see for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and maybe a little stuff just for this crowd. The footage will be a mix of PG, PG-13, and R rated previews of movies coming out this summer and fall, but specific movies or studios participating will have to be a surprise.
Included? Likely lots of good stuff. We saw first looks at “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the Bruce Springsteen biopic “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” “The Naked Gun” remake, “Roofman” with Channing Tatum, “The Running Man” with Glen Powell, “Wicked: For Good,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride,” and so much more.
The special presentation takes place on Tuesday, April 22 and again on April 24 and will screen at thousands of theaters nationwide. Tickets are just $3 and are on sale now, and as a nice touch, proceeds from the presentation go to charities, including Variety — The Children’s Charity, Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation, Canadian Picture Pioneers, and The Cinema Foundation.
The Cinema Foundation is the non-profit arm of Cinema United (formerly NATO), which each year hosts CinemaCon and is putting on this Sneak Peek Showcase.
“Sneak Peek Showcase helps bring a little taste of the famed industry-insider event CinemaCon to movie lovers with a fun look at the upcoming theatrical slate,” says Bryan Braunlich, Executive Director of The Cinema Foundation. “For the first time, cinema-goers will get a glimpse of the most anticipated movies coming soon to their neighborhood theaters all in one program. We are proud to have proceeds benefit industry charitable organizations, and we are grateful for the support of our sponsors, Fandango and The Coca-Cola Company.”
The Cinema Foundation in 2025 is trying to get more people out to theaters by offering a variety of special promotional days. Among them are Date Night @ The Movies that will offer discounts for couples on August 15 and Family Day @ The Movies for… you guessed it, families, on November 9. Back on January 19 was National Popcorn Day, which allowed unlimited popcorn refills for people who went to the theater that day.
