Christopher Nolan waxed lyrical about early influences like Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey but gave little away about his upcoming sci-fi starring Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey.

Speaking on stage (26), the British director of the Dark Knight trilogy and Inception said he cast McConaughey because he was “a sort of everyman”, but beyond that revealed nothing about the character or plot.

Nolan professed his love for the immersive experience of cinema, adding that he preferred film versus digital. Interestingly for a speaker at an exhibition convention, he expressed a lack of blind enthusiasm for 3D and the notion of innovation for the sake of innovation.

He reserved praise for Imax and spoke of the need to present Interstellar in the right way. The time-travel sci-fi opens on November 7 in the US through Paramount and day-and-date in most of the rest of the world on the same weekend through Warner Bros.

  • The Disney presentation at CinemaCon saw Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn claim that upcoming release Million Dollar Arm starring John Hamm – which the studio screened for delegates and will release on May 16 – scored the highest test results the executive had ever seen. Disney top brass also showed clips from Captain America: The Winter Soldier (April 4) and Guardians Of The Galaxy (August 1), as well as Maleficent (May 30) and Planes: Fire And Rescue (July 18). There was first footage too from summer 2015 Pixar release Inside Out, which drew a favourable response from the crowd.
  • Sony executives showed 30 minutes from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, due out on May 2, as well as footage from David Ayer’s WWII tank film Fury, scheduled to open on November 14.