"Don't rush to give all those screens to Star Wars," Tom Rothman quipped at CinemaCon.


Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Rothman delivered an early Christmas 2019 present to theater owners Monday night as CinemaCon got underway in Las Vegas.


Rothman announced that the follow-up to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will be ready in time for a Christmas 2019 release.


"I'd bet on seeing Dwayne Johnson in theaters again in December 2019. Don't rush to give all those screens to Star Wars," Rothman quipped. "Come on, fair's fair."


Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is one of the most successful films in Sony's history, grossing more than $956 million at the worldwide box office following its year-end 2017 release.


Rothman was in high form as he took to the stage at CinemaCon to plug the studio's upcoming slate. Sony is first up this year at the annual convention, a gathering of Hollywood studios and theater owners. He capped the Sony presentation by bringing Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio on stage inside the cavernous Colesseum at Caesars Palace to talk about their next film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which opens in theaters in August 2019.


The film studio chairman also introduced a new trailer for the Tom Hardy superhero pic, Venom (Oct. 5), while Phil Lord and Chris Miller shared footage of their animated superhero pic Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse (Dec. 14).


Will Ferrell, who stars in Sony's Holmes & Watson (Dec. 21), opened Sony's presentation by belting out a few lines from Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" (the Colosseum is home to Dion's show), and revealing that he had just won $50,000 at the Roulette table. The actor — who was recently in a car accident — then enticed the audience to chant, "hail, Caesar!"