What to look forward to at the cinema in the coming months

By Constantinos Psillides

There was a time when San Diego ComicCon was the undisputed arena for studios to flex their upcoming slates. Fans, cosplay, surprise appearances, Hall H hysteria, the whole circus. But over the past few years, the industry has quietly shifted. The real power plays are now happening at events like CinemaCon, where the audience isn’t fans but the people who literally decide what gets shown on screens around the world: cinema owners.

It’s a different vibe. Less screaming, more suits. This year’s CinemaCon was stacked. Trailers, first looks, casting reveals, and enough “exclusive footage” to make everyone not in the room turn red from envy. Here are six of the biggest drops that matter.

Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum

Middle Earth is officially back on the menu!

Peter Jackson returns to the world of The Lord of the Rings, not in the director’s chair but as producer, alongside key members of the original trilogy team. That alone was enough to get the room buzzing. Jamie Dornan steps into the role of Aragorn, Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf, because some roles simply do not get recast. Ever.

The Hunt for Gollum acts as a bridge leading into events of The Fellowship of the Ring. Drawing from Tolkien’s appendices, the story follows Gandalf tasking Aragorn with tracking down Gollum before he can reveal critical information to Sauron. It’s a slow, years-long pursuit across Middle Earth, culminating in Gollum’s capture and his chilling revelation about Bilbo, the Shire and the One Ring.

This prompts Gandalf to urgently return to the Shire to warn Frodo, setting the stage for the first film.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

While the MCU is still in recalibration mode, Spider-Man remains its safest bet.

Tom Holland returns in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, picking up directly after the reality-warping fallout of the previous film. Peter Parker saved the universe… and erased himself from it. No one remembers him. Not his girlfriend MJ, not his childhood friend Ned, no one.

CinemaCon attendees were shown an extended scene: Peter spots Ned at a coffee shop, follows him and ends up at an apartment party where Ned now lives with MJ. Neither recognises him.

Ned casually explains he’s built an app to track Spider-Man sightings and has narrowed the identity down to either Flash Thompson or a former teacher. For a hardcore fan that was hilarious. Then MJ walks in, delivers the ‘friendly neighbourhood’ line from the trailer.

Social Reckoning

Aaron Sorkin is going back to Facebook.

Social Reckoning acts as a follow-up to The Social Network, shifting focus from creation myth to consequences. Specifically, the fallout from whistleblower Frances Haugen exposing internal practices around misinformation, harmful content, and algorithm-driven engagement to the point of actively and knowingly damaging society.

Jesse Eisenberg is out. Jeremy Strong is in, portraying a colder, more hardened Mark Zuckerberg. This isn’t about a guy coding in a dorm room anymore. It’s about a man presiding over a platform he used to enrich himself, while being fully aware of the havoc it unleashed,

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan took the stage and did what Nolan does best: wax poetically about his love of cinema.

His next film, The Odyssey, stars Matt Damon. The presentation included extended footage, showing off Nolan’s vision.

Shot entirely on IMAX cameras with a budget reportedly around $250 million, this Nolan’s biggest project to date.

He praised theatre owners as the backbone of cinema, described the production process as “a nightmare,” thanking Damon for being a true partner throughout the whole process.

Release date is set for July 17, a slot reserved for films expected to be major summer events. See Barbenheimer.

Focker-In-Law

The Meet the Parents universe is back, because apparently awkward family dynamics are eternal. Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller reunite for Focker-In-Law, the next instalment in the franchise This time, the dynamic flips. Instead of Stiller trying to impress De Niro’s intimidating father figure, both men are now dealing with a new addition to the family: Stiller’s daughter-in-law, played by Ariana Grande.

And she’s not easily intimidated. She’s an FBI hostage negotiator.

Which means every passive-aggressive dinner conversation now comes with professional-level psychological counterplay. Stiller is once more at a loss. Hilarity ensues.