CinemaCon 2025: Amazon MGM Has Big Plans for Movie Theaters

James Bond was on the brain even before the lights went down on Amazon MGM’s inaugural CinemaCon presentation.

As the audience took their seats, the familiar 007 theme song played over the loudspeakers before segueing into Shirley Bassey’s immortal title track from Goldfinger—a pairing that teased fresh details about the storied spy franchise’s future under its new owners.

Bond was also the last thing that audiences saw nearly 90 minutes later as part of an event-closing video tribute to MGM’s pre- and post-Amazon acquisition future. In between those two bookends, the studio confirmed that MI6’s most wanted agent would be back on the big screen soon… although exactly how soon was left an open question.

“We are committed to honoring the legacy of this iconic character while bringing a fresh, exotic new chapter to audiences around the world,” said Courtenay Valenti, Amazon MGM head of theatrical and streaming film.

The executive added that Amy Pascal and David Heyman—the producing team taking over the Bond series after Amazon acquired full creative control from previous owners Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson—were in London actively working on 007’s next chapter. No timeline was given for the release of that next chapter, and the new face of Bond remains a mystery for now.

But Amazon did seek to clear up one major non-Bond related mystery: Why did a previously streaming-first company decide to make a hard pivot into theatrical exhibition? As with everything Amazon-related, the explanation comes down to customer satisfaction.

“We look at everything through the lens of our customers,” Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and MGM Studios, emphasized in his opening remarks. “We want to give audiences every entertainment experience they’re looking for, [including] the communal experience that can’t be replicated at home.”

Hopkins also vowed to exhibitors that Amazon is in the theatrical game “for the long term,” promising a slate of 15 theatrical releases by 2027—a vow that inspired cheers among the exhibition executives in the room.

“When Amazon commits to something, we tend to do it big,” he noted. (Amazon parted ways with Amazon MGM head Jen Salke last week ahead of CinemaCon. She will not be replaced, with Valenti and head of TV Vernon Sanders now reporting to Hopkins.)

Speaking of big, the studio’s head of global marketing, Sue Kroll, indicated that she intends to use Amazon’s global reach to launch “bespoke [marketing] campaigns” that play out across the company’s many and varied platforms. “Thanks to Amazon’s reach, we can scale that like never before,” she said.

“Tonight is truly the beginning of a new chapter for us,” echoed Kevin Wilson, Amazon’s head of theatrical distribution. “It kind of feels like the first day of school—except we did our homework.”

Modest beginnings

While Amazon is promising 15 theatrical releases for 2027, the studio’s output is considerably smaller for 2025. The first sentence in the studio’s “new chapter” will be written by The Accountant 2, arriving in multiplexes on April 25 with Ben Affleck reprising his role from the 2016 original.

Affleck previously collaborated with Amazon on his 2023 sports drama Air, which scored a theatrical release after initially being slated for a streaming bow. The movie went on to gross $90 million globally before becoming a Prime Video tile.

After April, moviegoers will have to wait until Oct. 10 for Amazon’s next big screen offering, the Luca Guadagnino-directed After the Hunt starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri. And like Affleck, several of those individuals have a history with the company.

Guadagnino directed the Zendaya tennis movie Challengers that Amazon released theatrically last year to great acclaim and solid returns. Meanwhile, Roberts starred in the first season of the Prime Video series Homecoming, while Edebiri headlined the riotous 2023 high school comedy Bottoms, which was made under the storied Orion Pictures label now owned by Amazon MGM.

Even as Amazon executives expressed a commitment to theatrical exhibition, the studio hasn’t completely abandoned streaming premieres. On May 1, Another Simple Favor—Paul Feig’s sequel to his 2018 cult favorite once again starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively—will bypass multiplexes and take its bow on Prime Video.

Speaking with Indiewire recently, Feig said there were no hard feelings about going straight to streaming. “Look, as a filmmaker, do you like to have your movie on the big screen? Yes,” he remarked. “But there’s so many fans of this film. People are going to get together in their houses and watch it as a group—that’s my favorite thing.”

Get your kicks in 2026

While 2025 may be a sleepy year for Amazon’s in-theater offerings, the studio will be wide awake during 2026. Hopkins said that 14 films are on deck next year, running the gamut of genres and featuring a bevy of big-name stars.

The parade of theatrical titles starts Jan. 23 with the release of Mercy, a sci-fi thriller starring Chris Pratt, a familiar Prime Video presence courtesy of the streaming series The Terminal List and the Covid-era streaming feature The Tomorrow War.

Another sci-fi production, Project Hail Mary, follows in March, headlined by Ryan Gosling and directed by the Spider-Verse team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller. “It’s an insanely ambitious story that’s massive in scope,” the Barbie star told the CinemaCon audience about why the Interstellar-meets-E.T. yarn needs to be seen on the big screen. “We tried to put it on a TV once—it doesn’t fit.”

Amazon is also expecting big things from its live action version of Masters of the Universe, cueing up a teaser presentation filled with early footage of Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Jared Leto as Skeletor. Set for release on June 6 right in the thick of summer blockbuster season, the movie is Amazon’s bid for IP-based franchise worldbuilding in the tradition of the Marvel and DC cinematic universes.

But Amazon executives were also careful to note that they aren’t banking solely on pricey spectacles to lure moviegoers to theaters. Also in the 2026 mix is an adaptation of the Colleen Hoover bestseller Verity starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson; the Los Angeles-set drama Crime 101 with Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry; and Is God Is, a road movie described as a “mix of Greek tragedy, Afropunk, and spaghetti Western.”

“This presentation is just a glimpse of what’s to come,” Wilson said at the end of the night, vowing that—just like James Bond—Amazon will return to future CinemaCons. Maybe next time, they’ll reveal who gets to inherit the Aston Martin… and that license to kill.