News of the Week: James Gunn Shares First Look At His Superman Reboot

Christmas, New Year, and the end-of-year holidays are around the corner, and that means the season of big holiday releases and awards season hopefuls. This week brings the first look at James Gunn’s Superman, new Spider-Verse directors, Scream 7 news, and more.

As always, Atom Insider brings you a few hand-picked stories we think you’ll like. Ready? Let’s dive in.

Disney Becomes Only Studio To Hit $2 Billion This Year

After a few rough years, Disney has bounced back at the box office. Officially, it has hit $2 billion at the box office this year, putting it in a category all its own for 2024 as the only studio to hit that number. It also marks the first time the studio has crossed that threshold since before the pandemic; the last time Disney made $2 billion across all its brands was 2019, when it made over $13 billion dollars (including Fox movies), a record-breaking number thanks to half a dozen movies hitting the billion-dollar mark.

Last year saw Disney roll out a string of underperformers, including The Marvels, Wish, Pixar’s Elemental, The Haunted Mansion, and others, but 2014 has returned the studio to form. This year, however, has seen a few big hits, including Deadpool & Wolverine, Moana 2, Inside Out 2, and other smaller successes including Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Alien: Romulus. With Mufasa: The Lion King hitting theaters this week, the studio will only add to its total.

Courteney Cox Is Officially Returning For Scream 7

It shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise to anyone, but Courteney Cox is officially returning for Scream 7 to reprise her role of reporter Gale Weathers. She just closed her deal, as Variety first reported. Cox isn’t the only franchise veteran returning, however. The installment will also see Neve Campbell return as protagonist Sidney Prescott and Mason Gooding as fellow survivor Chad Meeks-Martin. Joining them are franchise newcomers Celeste O’Connor, Asa Germann, Mckenna Grace, Sam Rechner and Anna Camp in undisclosed roles. Industry newbie Isabel May will play Sidney’s young daughter. Original Scream writer Kevin Williamson will be directing, with Scream 7 set to hit theaters on February 27, 2026.

James Gunn Shares The First Superman Teaser Trailer

James Gunn has been working on his Superman reboot for a while now, and, considering Gunn’s track record, hopes have been high that this might be the movie that will salvage DC’s continually revamped DCU. The movie stars David Corenswet as the titular Superman/Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Now, the first trailer has been released, and we’re not gonna lie – we got a little teary-eyed from the actually hopeful vibes, especially hearing that iconic theme.

Superman (formerly titled Superman: Legacy) is in theaters July 11, 2025.

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse Finds Its Directors

Superman isn’t the only big superhero movie with news this week. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the last movie in Sony’s groundbreaking animated Spider-Verse trilogy, has found its directors. Deadline reports that Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson have been tapped to direct the film, the third directing duo in as many movies. Both men have been intimately involved in the trilogy from the beginning, with Persichetti serving as one of the directors of the first movie and a producer on the second, while Thompson was the production designer on the first movie and part of the directing team on the second. Now, Persichetti and Thompson will join forces for the first time as directors.

Also part of that continuity are Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who are returning as producers. They also wrote the script for Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse with Shang-Chi writer David Callaham. Fellow producers Amy Pascal and Avi Arad are also returning. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but there’s no doubt Beyond the Spider-Verse will live up to the high bar the first two movies set. The first movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2019 and the sequel, Across the Spider-Verse, became the highest-grossing animated movie for Sony of all time. Together, the first two films have grossed almost $1.1 billion at the box office.

With the tumult of Hollywood the past few years, the final film in the trilogy, which was originally expected to release this year, will not be hitting theaters until 2026 at the earliest.

National Film Registry Adds 25 New Titles To The Vault

Every year, the Library of Congress National Film Registry chooses a selection of films to preserve in its vault, with the criteria being the movies are ones deemed as having “cultural, historic or aesthetic importance.” This year, 25 new films were added. The new films being preserved are: