Lionsgate Closes Out CinemaCon 2022 with ‘John Wick 4’, ‘The Expendables 4’, New ‘Hunger Games’, and More

Lionsgate at CinemaCon 2022

Lionsgate didn’t deliver a super exciting CinemaCon 2022 panel, but their showing certainly packed enough thrills to generate buzz.

 

After Paramount exited the stage earlier yesterday, Lionsgate was the only big player left in a busier-than-usual CinemaCon. The biggest disappointment of the night perhaps came from the lack of marketing or surprise drops for fans outside the event. And, since the previews showed to the press and other attendees weren’t that meaty, there isn’t much to discuss besides some big news and small descriptions of first-ever footage. Read on below.

 

The Expendables 4

 

We hadn’t heard about the fourth installment of the “action film legends” franchise since late 2021, so updates were due during last night’s presentation. 50 Cent, part of the film’s roster of new faces, introduced exclusive footage from the film, which was described as “more violent than Will Smith at a comedy club” (LMAO, honestly). The reel, among other things, stated that more than 7,000 dead bodies piled up over the past three installments. “It was all a warm-up for this.” A release date wasn’t shared though.

 

The Expendables 4

 

John Wick 4

 

Star Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski dropped by to talk the fourth John Wick, arguably the biggest dish in Lionsgate’s menu last night. Reeves started praising his longtime collaborator: “I first met you, Chad, when we were doing The Matrix in 1998… I think that’s the movie where we forged the fire of our creative bond through the Wachowski school of cinema and storytelling. It’s been an honor to build these stories with you.” He then described the John Wick franchise as “a celebration of fight choreography, balletic action and storytelling that can only happen through movement.”

 

In the first-ever footage, Wick says he’s “going to kill them all” before it cuts to horse-riding in the desert, car chases, and the assassin smashing a foe’s head with nunchucks. It seems Stahelski and his team aren’t running out of ideas yet. No word about the already-confirmed fifth installment yet. Right now, John Wick: Chapter 4 is set to arrive in theaters on March 24, 2023.

 

On top of that, Ana de Armas was confirmed as the lead of Ballerina, the franchise’s first spinoff. It starts shooting soon.

 

John Wick 4

 

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

 

Lionsgate also announced the next chapter in the billion-dollar Hunger Games franchise is slated to arrive in theaters November 17, 2023. It’ll be directed by Francis Lawrence, who previously helmed the other Hunger Games installments, except the first one. The announcement teaser didn’t pack any footage, as the film is just in pre-production, but it teased that “the world will discover who is a songbird and who is a snake” before revealing a golden logo (see below). Expect casting news soon.

 

The synopsis for the film reads as follows: “In this return to The Hunger Games, years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow sees a chance for a change in fortunes when he is chosen to be a mentor to Lucy Gray Baird, the girl tribute from impoverished District 12.” The new project is being written by creator Suzanne Collins, along with Michael Arndt (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Inside Out) and Michael Lesslie (Macbeth, Assassin’s Creed).

 

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

 

Other noteworthy projects discussed during the panel included:

 

  • About My Father, loosely based on comedian Sebastian Maniscalco’s life story (he also presented the event) and starring Robert De Niro, Leslie Bibb, and Kim Cattrall.

 

  • Eli Roth’s Borderlands adaptation, which still doesn’t have a release date despite being well into post-production. Around a minute of “electric footage” was shown during a reel, featuring Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett in a fiery-red wig, toting a gun, and fighting her way through a “vibrantly colored cityscape” alongside Kevin Hart and Jack Black’s Claptrap, the iconic sassy robot from the games.

 

  • Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, based on the first novel by renowned author Judy Blume. It tells a coming-of-age story about Margaret Simon, “a sixth-grader who questions everything about adolescence and puberty while searching the universe for answers of any kind.” Abby Ryder Fortson (Ant-Man) takes on the title character, with Rachel McAdams playing her mother and Benny Safdie her father. Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen) wrote and directed the film.

 

Top cap things off, Lionsgate topper Joe Drake praised the theatrical experience: “Seeing a movie in a theater is just better. In fact, a movie is only a movie when you see it in a movie theater. There’s something liberating about being part of an audience. Sitting next to a complete stranger and laughing at the same thing, you feel a little more human. What we believe at Lionsgate is just because an experience is shared, doesn’t mean it can’t be singular.” He’s not wrong.