Why tease one Spider-Man movie when two will do? Sony used its platform as CinemaCon 2026’s opening night presenter to share fresh footage from both the live-action Spidey yarn Spider-Man: Brand New Day and the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
At last year’s edition, Brand New Day star Tom Holland revealed the title of his fourth Spider-Man adventure, which makes him the longest-serving web-slinger. At that point, Brand New Day had only just started production while cameras had yet to roll on even one of Mendes’ four Beatles pictures. But Sony shared more — much more — from the film at tonight’s presentation, along with looks at upcoming titles like Jumanji 3, Resident Evil, and The Social Reckoning.
There was one notable absence from the lineup, though. Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes took the stage in 2025 to unveil the fabulous four actors who would play the Fab Four in his planned quartet of Beatles biopics: Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. While those films have started production with an eye towards a 2028 release date, no early footage was shared with the CinemaCon crowd, which means we’ll have to spend another year waiting to hear Keoghan belt out the chorus of “Octopus’s Garden.”
But before that bevy of blockbusters and awards contenders, comedian and Primetime Emmy host Nate Bargatze kicked Sony’s presentation off with a look at his first major motion picture, The Breadwinner (May 29), doing a tight five-minute movie themed-comedy routine for the exhibitors in the room. “I want to sell tickets,” he said of the live-action family comedy — a genre that’s largely disappeared from movie theaters — which also stars Mandy Moore, who joined him onstage.
“I know Nate jokes about not being an actor, but he’s very much an actor,” the This Is Us star remarked. “I’m so happy to be in a comedy that families can go out and see together.” That cued up an extended clip from the film which finds Bargatze’s well-meaning dad preparing to take care of his three daughters solo after Moore heads off on a business trip to South Korea. That leaves Bargatze to Mr. Mom his way through a variety of domestic scenarios, including getting his kids to school on time… which is tough when he doesn’t actually know where those schools are.
And then it was time for Spidey. “Brand New Day is as big as anything we have ever made, but it feels like nothing we have ever made,” teased Sony head honcho Tom Rothman before bringing on Holland, who wasn’t there in person, but engaged in some prerecorded virtual patter with his boss. “It’s exciting for me to tell you about Brand New Day,” the actor said, saying he was “super-proud” of the film, which opens July 31. “What I want to let you know is the movie is the most emotional Spider-Man movie we’ve ever made.”
Holland then showed just how emotional Brand New Day would be introducing a clip from a non-action scene that stars with Peter Parker running across his memory-wiped former best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) in a New York bodega. Trailing Ned to an apartment building, Peter finds himself attending a college party where he discovers Ned’s secret pastime — documenting Spider-Man’s exploits, hoping to discover his identity in order to thank him for all his efforts.
Ned also reveals he invented an app that tracks Spider-Man sightings (a device straight out of the blockbuster Spider-Man video games for PlayStation) that has helped him narrow down the hero’s place of origin to Queens, N.Y. He even has a suspect in mind; Roger Harrington, Martin Starr’s high school teacher from the pervious trilogy.
At that point, Peter’s former flame MJ (Zendaya) makes an appearance, and a stammering Peter introduces himself to her as Maynard. “You two don’t know each other?” Ned says, leading “Maynard” to say he’s just a neighbor. “A friendly neighbor,” MJ says. Peter then watches from afar as his one-time girlfriend locks lips with her new boyfriend. Cue the waterworks, Peter-MJ ‘shippers.
Not to be outdone, the creative team behind the Spider-Verse saga — including Project Hail Mary helmers Phil Lord and Chris Miller — promised that the trilogy-capping installment would also be an “emotional” experience. “Now there’s no rule book,” Lord said of Beyond the Spider-Verse. “So we’re going to places we’ve never gone before.”
The same goes for Miles in the opening moments of Beyond the Spider-Verse, which Sony screened for an excited crowd. The clip shows Miles confronting an alternate universe version of his beloved Uncle Aaron, as well as an alternate Miles, who has taken on the mantle of The Prowler in this realm. “You have to let me go,” our Miles begs, revealing their shared identities to his captors and trying to explain the “canon event” narrative device set up in the pervious film. “You know how dumb that sounds, right?” the other Miles scoffs.
Needles to say, Miles does figure a way out of captivity and reunites with a few familiar faces, including Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham, and Spider-Punk. Even in its unfinished state, it’s clear that Beyond the Spider-Verse is continuing to push… well, beyond the limits of what animated films traditionally look like. “It’ll be worth the wait,” Rothman promised of the film, which will be in theaters on June 18, 2027 almost a decade after the release of the franchise-launcher, Into the Spider-Verse, which won the Best Animated Feature statuette at the 2018 Oscars.
But Sony’s presentation wasn’t all superheroes all the time. They also shared an advanced look at a movie about a real life figure that some consider to be a supervillain. Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin introduced the first trailer for The Social Reckoning, the long-awaited follow-up to his much-nominated 2010 drama, The Social Network. That David Fincher-directed film told the origin story of Facebook with Jesse Eisenberg playing the social media behemoth’s creator, Mark Zuckerberg. The Social Reckoning, which Sorkin wrote and directed, recasts Jeremy Strong as an older and maybe not-much-wiser version of the Facebook founder.
“Awhile back, we told a story about a college kid who built a social media site in his dorm and changed the world,” Sorkin said. “A lot has happened since then — it’s time to say more.” The filmmaker went on to frame Reckoning — which opens Oct. 9 — as a “David and Goliath” story where Zuckerberg is the Goliath and the David is Mikey Madison’s Frances Haugen, a Facebook employee who spills company secrets to Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White.
While this is Madison’s first big-screen role since winning the Best Actress statuette for Anora, all eyes in the room were on how Strong would portray Zuckerberg, and the Emmy-winning Succession star leans into the tech titan’s Lex Luthor-like public persona as well as the obliviousness to the harm his company is causing. “People around here understand that when I say, ‘No,’ that’s the end of the debate,” he warns his crisis counselor, played by comedian Bill Burr, at one point during the trailer.
Befitting a film that comes from the writer of a A Few Good Men, Reckoning seems as thought it will involve plenty of courtroom drama, as well as pithy Sorkin-isms. The last line of the trailer finds Horwitz saying of Haugen, “She’s disrupting.”
While The Social Reckoning is Sony’s big Oscar hopeful this fall, the studio has a dark horse contender in the form of Klara and the Sun, Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 bestseller. Due in theaters on Oct. 23, the sci-fi-laced story follows an artificial human (Jenna Ortega) who is adopted by a seemingly sunny family that’s hiding some dark secrets. Footage from the film suggests that Waititi is trying to strike the same seriocomic tone present in 2019’s Jojo Rabbit, which scored six Oscar nominations — including Best Picture — and awarded the New Zealand filmmaker a statuette for Best Adapted Screenplay. Look for Klara to potentially premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival where Jojo Rabbit had its debut and won the People’s Choice Award.
After writing an Oscar-winning role for Amy Madigan, Weapons writer-director Zach Cregger is taking his talents to Raccoon City. The horror maestro took the stage to set up his reboot of Resident Evil, a fresh installment of the storiedvideo game horror franchise. “I have played a s–tload of Resident Evil,” Cregger said, promising that this new take wouldn’t have the narrative gamesmanship of Barbarian or Weapons. “You’re going to be locked in with one protagonist from Point A to Point B,” he teased. That premise is borne out in the first-look trailer, which featured said protagonist (Austin Abrams) navigating a treacherous journey filled with call-outs to Reisident Evil lore.
Sticking with video games, Sony confirmed that production has wrapped on the live-action version of the beloved Nintendo franchise The Legend of Zelda, due in theaters on May 2027. No footage was shared from the Wes Ball-directed adaptation, but the studio announced that an R-rated animated movie version of PlayStation’s Bloodborne is going into production. Meanwhile, Justin Lin will helm a live-action version of another PlayStation hit, Helldivers, with Jason Momoa set to star. “I had been searching for a project that’s not just fun and action-packed, but also has characters and themes that connect all of us,” the Fast Five director said of the film, which is set for a Nov. 10, 2027 release.
Last, but not least, Jumanji stars Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black broke out some R-rated language while promoting the newest chapter in family-friendly franchise, which opens in theaters on Christmas Day. “We are pumped about being back,” said Hart, with Johnson adding that there was “something special” about this particular series. “This whole franchise would not have kicked off without one man, and that’s Robin Williams,” Johnson added, teasing a Williams-related Easter egg in the new movie — one-half of the dice from the late actor’s 1995 version of Jumanji.
Johnson also revealed that this new film would be called Jumanji: Open World, and it picks up from where the previous installment left off with the real world and the game world colliding. That means that the characters’ video game avatars are no longer confined to the magic console… but they’re also all stuck in “demo mode,” which renders them almost useless in putting the escaped creatures from the game back in the proverbial box. If Open World is able to hold its own against holiday blockbusters Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday it won’t be “Game Over” on the Jumanji movies just yet.
