All smiles for Amazon at CinemaCon
The following honors were presented Thursday night during CinemaCon’s Big Screen Achievement Awards: Female Star of Tomorrow: Sofia Boutella Male Star of Tomorrow: Ansel Elgort Director of the Year: Jordan Peele Comedy Star of the Year: Kumail Nanjiani International Achievement in Comedy: Eugenio Derbez Producer of the Year: Chris Meledandri Cinema Icon Award: Goldie Hawn CinemaCon Vanguard Award: Salma Hayek Rising Star of the Year: Isabela Moner Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film: Naomi Watts
Breakthrough Performer of the Year: Brenton Thwaites Action Star of the Year: John Cena Male Star of the Year: Charlie Hunnam Female Star of the Year: Jessica Chastain do the talking.
There was an extended, surprisingly emotional clip of “War for the Planet of the Apes,” a long look at “Alien: Covenant” and a trailer for “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” that was greeted with raucous applause.
Attendees also saw early looks at “Red Sparrow,” an international thriller in which Jennifer Lawrence portrays a former prima ballerina who’s recruited and programmed to be a spy, and “Murder on the Orient Express,” starring director Kenneth Branagh, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Cena was back onstage at the Amazon luncheon, once again with the smoke and entrance music — “It kinda happens everywhere I go,” he quipped — to promote the Doug Liman-directed sniper drama “The Wall.”
And a charming Charlie Hunnam talked about the rigors of shooting “The Lost City of Z,” an adventure set and filmed in the real Amazon. Not only did a lightning bolt knock him off his feet in the jungle, he wasn’t even safe in his hotel room, where a beetle burrowed deep inside his ear.
Later in the luncheon, the two stars walked from table to table passing out candy as though they were part of some leftover Academy Awards bit.
Lionsgate’s presentation, the final one among the 10 participating studios, was substantially less dramatic than last year’s. In 2016, a couple of dummies trying to get presenter Keanu Reeves’ autograph left their backpacks in their seats. The duo made international headlines when their unattended bags led to the evacuation of the Colosseum during a screening of “Now You See Me 2.”
This year, Lionsgate brought out Salma Hayek to promote the comedy “How to Be a Latin Lover” and to introduce a screening of the action-comedy “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.” Aside from that, the studio only showed a couple of trailers, including a new one for the Tupac Shakur biopic, “All Eyez On Me.”
It was an underwhelming end to four long days, during which the effects of last year’s incident still were being felt. Tighter security measures meant every bag brought into the Colosseum — as part of a convention that saw bags handed out at virtually every event — had to be inspected.
For every other presentation, that was done by security guards. But before Lionsgate’s, my bags were sniffed by Ferrah, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinois from Elite Tactical Security.
According to her trading card, which also is an actual thing, she enjoys jogging and swimming.
Thankfully, she doesn’t have much interest in Amazon-sponsored M&Ms, which made up the bulk of one of my bags. Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch.