Posted in: Focus Features, Movies, Universal | Tagged: cinemacon, Focus Features, movies, Universal Pictures

CinemaCon 2022: Universal and Focus Bring A Lot and Very Little Part 2

And we're back for part two of this Universal and Focus Features massive recap. Unlike last year when Focus really made a splash, this year it felt a little more muted. They announced some projects without any footage and showed off some not-trailers that won't be released in these exact forms. We got a look at Mrs Harris Goes to Paris which looks like it is channeling that sort of twee cuteness that we get from a lot of Wes Anderson movies. The costumes, since it this about couture fashion, are going to be the real star of this one.

Focus's Armageddon Time will make its debut at Cannes next month and is an exploration of life in Queens in the 1980s through the eyes of a black family and a Jewish family. The footage looks like something that would make its debut at Cannes and Anthony Hopkins looks like he is gunning for another Oscar if this one ends up hitting hard. This is exactly the type of thing that awards season eats up. We also got a brief look at the Cate Blanchett starring TÁR but the footage really didn't give us much of anything to go off of. Finally, we got another look at Downton Abbey: A New Era but as someone who has never seen a single frame of that show or the last movie, I could not tell you what was new. It looks like Downtown Abbey and fans of that will likely get exactly what they want which is fine.

In a move that felt awkward as hell, we switched back to Universal movies and David Harbour came out to show off one of the most buckwild sounding movies that we have heard in a while. It's Santa Clause by way of Nobody or John Wick as Harbour literally plays Santa Clause in Violent Night. He picks up a giant fucking hammer and smashes bad guys who take a family hostage on Christmas, it was absolutely insane looking. A dude got a star from the top of a tree shoved through his face and then he was electrocuted with it. We have no words, look for that one in December.

We got a look at some incomplete Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Much like the Spider-Verse footage we got to see and The Bat Guys footage we saw last August during another Universal panel, it was incomplete, but it looked cute and people who want more of that franchise will like it. Finally, Universal decided to finish the presentation with Jurassic World Dominion but much like other presentations, it felt there wasn't that much new footage. We saw that Owen makes a premise to Blue to save her baby raptor after it is captured by hunters. The dinosaur really have taken over the world and we see Owen move throughout a city absolutely overtaken by dinosaurs. When Owen explains that he made a promise to save the baby dinosaur, both Alan and Ian are not impressed.

At the beginning of the presentation, Universal went out of their way to say how much of all of this was new, but the way they had every set up made it feel extra and it was hard to distinguish between what was new or old without digging through old footage and trying to remember what was already released. That makes it harder for us to recap for all of you, but we hope that this and the liveblog helped get as much of the information across as possible.

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