LAS VEGAS — Superman will forever be counted on to save Metropolis and, occasionally, the world.

This summer, the Man of Steel also may be burdened with trying to save moviegoing as we know it.

“Superman,” the movie that will relaunch DC Studios and its universe of comics-based movies on July 11, was the centerpiece of the Warner Bros. presentation Tuesday evening at CinemaCon. The spectacle inside the Colosseum at Caesars Palace closed out the first full day of the annual gathering of the organization of movie theater owners now known as Cinema United.

David Corenswet (Superman), Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane) and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor) joined writer-director James Gunn and Peter Safran, the co-CEOs of DC Studios, to introduce exclusive footage from the superhero’s latest reimagining. The scenes revealed the Fortress of Solitude rising from the snow and ice, the unruliness of Krypto and Superman’s legion of robots.

“This is a movie that celebrates kindness and human love,” Gunn said of his first film since completing the “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy.

Other celebrities attending Tuesday’s presentations included Leonardo DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”), Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried (“The Housemaid”), Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Bride”), Bill Hader (“The Cat in the Hat”) and The Weeknd, who performed two songs in support of his upcoming movie, “Hurry Up Tomorrow.”

Improving the moviegoing experience

Between COVID and the industry strikes, it’s been a brutal five years for movie theaters.

Through Monday, the year’s domestic box office receipts totaled $1.4 billion, according to Box Office Mojo. That’s down 10.5% from this point last year, down 16.4% from this time in 2023, and it’s down 21% from the start of the pandemic in 2020.

In his second year at the helm of Cinema United, Michael O’Leary took a populist approach during his state of the industry address. The trade group’s president and CEO focused on everything from the sorry state of some theaters to the seemingly never-ending jumble of trailers before a movie.

“We are recovering, but we’re not yet recovered,” O’Leary said, acknowledging the “turbulent and challenging” past few years. But, he added, can’t continue to cling to the norms of pre-pandemic business or the fixes put in place since.

Among his key proposals was getting studios to agree to a 45-day minimum between a movie’s theatrical release and its availability on digital platforms. Known as the theatrical window, this period of time has become a key point of contention between theater owners and studios.

Take “Mickey 17.” Filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s first movie since 2020’s best picture winner “Parasite” was one of the more intriguing projects showcased at last year’s CinemaCon. After a lackluster opening last month, it was on digital platforms where it could be watched on televisions, laptops, tablets and phones just 18 days later.

On Monday, executives from Sony which, unlike the other major studios, doesn’t have a streaming offshoot to benefit from shortened theatrical windows, stressed the importance of keeping movies in theaters as long as possible.

Adam Bergerman, president of Sony Pictures releasing, referenced a Cinema United survey that found a third of North American consumers expect that they’ll be able to watch a movie at home within a month of its theatrical release.

“Such thinking undermines opening weekends across the board,” Bergerman told attendees. That attitude, he added, must change for the sake of the industry.

O’Leary also called for owners to keep their theaters clean, updated and well managed, and he urged them to continue to invest in all aspects of the moviegoing experience. To that end, Cinema United announced last fall that the eight largest exhibition chains in the United States and Canada would invest more than $2.2 billion in upgrades over the next three years.

The Cinema United leader also took aim at a popular pet peeve by imagining a world in which the preshow was made up only of between four and six movie trailers that were no longer than 90 seconds each.

In another consumer-friendly idea, Tom Rothman, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group, asked theater owners to remember the word “Tuesday” and treat it like a mantra. That day is special, Rothman said, because that’s when most theaters offer discounted admission, which leads to higher grosses. What, he posited, would happen if theater owners extended those discount days to Mondays and Wednesdays as well?

Other movie highlights

The four days of CinemaCon are part pep rally and part counseling session as studios, their stars and directors take to the Colosseum stage to gin up hype and, in some cases, hope for their upcoming movies. It’s become a crucial stop on the promotional circuit where, much like Comic-Con, new footage is shown to the people in the room to build anticipation for those movies among fans.

In addition to the “Superman” scenes, Warner Bros. previewed the first 10 minutes of “F1.” Parts of the Brad Pitt movie, opening June 27, were filmed during the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

And the “John Wick” universe is expanding again. Lionsgate used a portion of its Tuesday morning presentation to announce “John Wick: Chapter Five” as well as an animated prequel and a spinoff movie, directed by Donnie Yen, that will focus on his assassin Caine from “John Wick: Chapter 4.” The spinoff “Ballerina” opens June 6.

CinemaCon runs through Thursday. Other studios presenting this year are Disney, Paramount, Universal and, for the first time, Amazon MGM Studios, which is about to ramp up its newly acquired James Bond franchise.

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