Las Vegas got a taste of The Great Beyond on Tuesday, as J.J. Abrams gave a look at his latest project during Warner Bros.’ CinemaCon presentation.
The star-studded film features Glen Powell, Jenna Ortega, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Merritt Wever and Samuel L. Jackson, and marks Abrams’ first directorial effort since 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. It’s set for a theatrical release on Nov. 13.
The plot had been kept tightly under wraps, and the footage does not reveal much about the story. The trailer opens with an H.G. Wells quote and shows Powell and Ortega tentatively interacting.
“People like us, I think we’re looking for something — something pure, something we cant find here,” Ortega says. The trailer’s scenes show flickering lights, a glowing substance and the ground opening up. It ends with Powell on the run.
“I felt like I needed to get back to telling original stories,” Abrams said from the stage. “I wanted it to be big and something that generations, different people can all go to the theater to see. At the heart of the movie, it’s about reconnecting with that sense of possibility and wonder that we had when we were kids.”
Abrams praised his big-name cast and joked that he chose Powell as the lead because he wanted the character to be someone about whom viewers think, “Maybe he peaked in high school.”
The Great Beyond also comes as Abrams enters a new phase with his Bad Robot production company; earlier this month, it was revealed that Bad Robot would be scaling down operations and reorganizing as it shuts down its Los Angeles office and moves to New York, where Abrams now resides. The company was founded in 1999 and has been behind TV hits including 2001’s Alias, 2004’s Lost, 2008’s Fringe, 2011’s Person of Interest and 2016’s Westworld, and film successes including Abrams’ Star Wars movies, multiple Mission: Impossible projects and 2009’s Star Trek reboot.
CinemaCon, the annual gathering of cinema owners and Hollywood studios, is hosted in Las Vegas by Cinema United, formerly known as the National Association of Theatre Owners. This year’s edition runs April 13-16.
