Halloween And Glass Sneaks Rule Universal Pictures' CinemaCon

LAS VEGAS –  Universal Pictures has quite a year in front of them.  There’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” Damien Chazelle’s “First Man,” Illumination’s “Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch,” “Night School” with Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish (can they host the Oscars together?), Dreamworks’ “How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” Eli Roth‘s kid friendly “The House With A Clock In Its Walls,” Dwayne Johnson’s “Skyscraper,” an untitled Robert Zemeckis drama and the Peter Jackson produced “Mortal Engines.”   The two films that really blew away the crowd of theater owners and operators at CinemaCon, however, were David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” and M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass.”

Claire Foy pop but first footage of “First Man” doesn’t take off at CinemaCon

Not surprise Jamie Lee Curtis got a hero’s welcome from the audience as she walked on stage to present “Halloween.”  The always self-deprecating star apologized to the exhibitors for making 1999’s “Virus” and joked that only the “Star Wars” and “Halloween” franchises could still have the same actors appearing in the same franchise forty years later.  Curtis has appeared on screen in three other “Halloween” movies, but it was the fact original director John Carpenter (an executive producer here), mega producer Jason Blum and screenwriters Danny McBride and Gordon Green were involved in this installment that made her take notice.  And it appears her instincts didn’t fail her this time around.

The footage for the new “Halloween” begins with a documentary crew visiting Michael Myers in prison where they want to inteview him about the murders that took place in the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois forty years prior.  Their visit is the opportunity Myers needs to escape and return home conveniently on the night of All Hallows Eve.  It’s unclear if any of the events in the other sequels are cannon here (we’ll assume not), but during Myers’ incarceration Laurie Strode (Curtis) has spent decades learning how to defend herself.  Her home is a fortress and there are scenes of her shooting targets and using knives in self-defense.   Inevitably, the two will face off, but it was the other footage that really provided the scares.

In one sequence, destined to be in the trailer, a baby sitter is asked by a kid in bed to shut his closet door (a closet with the light on conveying a safe environment).   She walks over and pushes it shut, but it won’t close completely.  She tries again and gets the same result.  She finally tries to ram it closed to only have it pop back open with none other than Myers there ready to pounce.   Clearly, Gordon, McBride, Blum and Curtis have come to play.

The other big winner of the day for Universal was Shyamalan’s long awaited return to the world of “Unbreakable” and “Split.”  Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy joined the filmmaker on stage along with newcomer Sarah Paulson.  The Emmy-winner seemingly plays a psychiatrist treating people who believe they have super powers.  After counseling someone off camera, the view flips and we see Elijah Price in a wheel chair (Jackson), one of Kevin Wendal Crumb 12 personalities (McAvoy) and, supposedly, our hero David Dunn (Willis).  They are in an institution and Paulson’s character is convinced their powers are not real.   Price, aka Glass, seems intent on teaming up with Crumb to have him unleash The Beast on the world (this entity should be referred to as The Horde, but it sounded like “The Beast” in the preview).  A montage of scenes indicate that all three will soon escape the institutional facility (there is one shot of The Beast/The Horde racing across the grass like an animal), but what direction the movie truly goes was unclear.  That being said, what the always secretive Shyamalan allowed Universal to tease was certainly tantalizing.

“Halloween” opens nationwide on October 19.  “Glass” opens nationwide on January 18, 2019.

Look for complete coverage from CinemaCon all this week on The Playlist.