The year’s movies flicker to life
P.T. Barnum, shrinking humans, blade runners and Dunkirk soldiers line up for screens.
LAS VEGAS — ComicCon, WonderCon, CinemaCon — let's be real, there are so many cons it can be tricky for film fans to remember which is which. The justconcluded CinemaCon, however, is the one where studios trot out big stars and directors for movie theater owners to promote the films they'll be sending to multiplexes in 2017.
Universal, Disney, Warner Bros., Fox, Sony, Paramount and Lionsgate all put on shows this week at the Caesars Palace Colosseum — the same place where Elton, Mariah and Céline have performed. (Focus Features and Amazon hosted luncheons too.)
The idea is to get exhibitors so excited about coming movies that they'll not only book the movies in their theaters, but put some titles in multiple auditoriums to maximize ticket sales.
Since the event also serves as a way to preview the film calendar for the rest of the year, we got a good sense of the movies that look like they'll be worthy of your time. Here's the lowdown on some of the most anticipated movies:
‘The Greatest Showman’
Hugh Jackman, star of the P.T. Barnum musical “The Greatest Showman,” helped make the 20th Century Fox presentation the greatest show at CinemaCon.
Whereas other studios tend to highlight their blockbuster movies at CinemaCon, Fox often opts to spotlight its Oscar hopefuls. In years past, Ang Lee promoted “Life of Pi” and James Cameron touted “Avatar” in front of thousands of exhibitors, who would have been thrilled if Cameron had showed up here with news of his long-anticipated “Avatar” sequels.
Jackman, though, did plenty to wow the crowd and sell the “The Greatest Showman,” which got the biggest push at the annual gathering despite the fact it won’t hit theaters until December. After thanking his “mum,” who, apparently, was in the audience, the actor addressed the exhibitors at length, thanking them for their commitment to the theatrical experience.
“There’s not one person in this room who didn’t, at some point in their lives, love movies more than anything else and wish that one day they could be in this business,” Jackman said.
So the audience was already on his side before he introduced the trailer for the film, which tells the origin story of Barnum, who founded the Barnum & Bailey Circus (later merged with Ringling Bros.). Though that very circus recently announced it would close this May after 146 years in the business, the film portrays the circus as a purely magical place. With music from the guys who wrote the Broadway hit “Dear Evan Hansen” — and costarring Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Zendaya — the movie, directed by Michael Gracey, appears to have an inspirational tone.
Other Fox movies to look out for: “Red Sparrow,” the November thriller, stars Jennifer Lawrence as a seductive spy. After suffering a grave accident during a dance performance, she’s forced to abandon her ballet career and find something else that makes her feel special: apparently, working as an undercover spy in Russia. “Alien: Covenant,” Ridley Scott’s latest, links the “Alien” and “Prometheus” stories. It comes out May 12. And “War for the Planet of the Apes,” in which ape leader Caesar (Any Serkis) faces off against a human army led by a ruthless colonel played by Woody Harrelson, features stunningly lifelike monkeys. It’s scheduled for a July 14 release.
‘Downsizing’
Despite Paramount Studios’ big push for “Transformers: The Last Knight,” the fifth in the franchise from director Michael Bay, it was the 10-minute preview of Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” that left exhibitors itching for more.
It stars Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig as adults who live in a world that has become so overpopulated that humans are opting to shrink to 5 inches tall to maximize their lifestyles. In the movie — which isn’t scheduled to come out until December — those who opt to get downsized suddenly have the opportunity to live in large mansions and spend $83 for two months’ worth of groceries.
In the scene teased for the crowd, Damon’s character decides he wants to go through with the procedure and turns up with his wife at a sterile waiting room. In a bleak-looking clinic, he and dozens of other men are put on gurneys, shaved of all their body hair, given new teeth and injected with a mysterious solution that allows them to shrink. The film looks to have a darkly comic tone: When Damon awakes from his transformation, the nurse arrives, asking if he’d like a post-op snack. She brings in a saltine that’s almost as big as his body.
“Isn’t that cute?” she says with a chuckle. “People just love that! I’ll bring you a real snack in a moment.”
Other Paramount releases to watch: “An Inconvenient Sequel,” the followup to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” Gore appeared to the Nelly song “Hot in Herre” to promote the July release. “Baywatch,” the film version of the 1990s TV series, saw stars Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron and Priyanka Chopra introducing what they called a “fuschia-band trailer” with “pervasive hotness, comedy and action.” “Annihilation,” the new sci-fi/extraterrestrial thriller from “Ex Machina” director Alex Garland, stars Natalie Portman as a woman who is grieving her husband (Oscar Isaac), then shocked by his suddenly return home. She quickly realizes something bad has happened to him while he was away on a covert mission that he refuses to talk about. To find out what happened to him, she decides to cross into the same dangerous environmental disaster zone where he fell ill. No release date has been set.
“Suburbicon,” which is George Clooney’s latest directorial effort and has awards hopes, stars Matt Damon (again) and Julianne Moore. It’s set around a murder plot in the suburbs.
“Paramount has given us a date of Nov. 3, which we’re very proud of,” Clooney told the crowd. “Also because it pits us against another superhero film: ‘Thor!’”
“Good date for us,” Damon said, shaking his head woefully.
‘Blade Runner 2049’ “Netflix, my ass.” Those were the fighting words the Sony Pictures Film Chairman Tom Rothman threw out in front of hundreds of movie theater owners, boasting about the studio’s upcoming slate.
While Sony unveiled footage from a handful of blockbuster hopefuls — an adaptation of Stephen King’s “Dark Tower,” a reboot of the kids’ flick “Jumanji” and the new “Spider-Man” flick — the executive was most bullish about this summer’s “Blade Runner 2049.”
Rothman made his Netflix diss after footage from the new Denis Villeneuve film played, insinuating that the movie’s theatrical experience will exceed anything offered on the streaming site.
A sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic, this time directed by Villeneuve, the film stars Harrison Ford and “an electrifying young star” — Rothman’s words — in Ryan Gosling. Dressed in a hoodie and jean jacket, Gosling came onstage to talk about his experience filming the movie in Budapest, Hungary, last year.
“The craftsmanship on this film is really on another level,” the “La La Land” star said. “Every location was real. Every set was there. Every prop was functional. It was a fully functioning, living, breathing world.”
‘Fate of the Furious’
Two years ago, Vin Diesel took to the stage in front of thousands of movie theater owners and made a vow: “‘The Fate of the Furious’ will be the best movie you have ever seen.”
The actor set out to make good on that promise Wednesday at CinemaCon, surprising the crowd by debuting the eighth installment in the Universal Pictures franchise.
We’re not sure you’ll agree with Diesel’s assessment about the film’s place in cinematic history, but the movie does deliver what you’d expect from a “Fast” movie: fast cars, globetrotting and plenty of “family” mentions.
The movie — which brings the crew to Havana, Berlin, New York City and the icy tundra in Russia — will have fans questioning where the loyalty of Diesel’s Dominic Toretto truly lies. While on his honeymoon in Cuba with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom is confronted by the franchise’s new villain: Cipher, played by Charlize Theron, who is sporting some, uh, interesting blond dreadlocks.
Diesel was particularly amped about Theron’s performance, telling the audience before the screening that his “whole career was leading up to working with this incredibly brilliant talent.”
‘Dunkirk’
For years, Christopher Nolan has set most of his films in the realm of fantasy. He explored the maze of the subconscious mind in “Inception,” sent astronauts through a wormhole in “Interstellar,” and offered what many consider the definitive take on the caped crusader in “The Dark Knight” trilogy. Even his suspense-thriller “Memento” played with time and the mind.
But the Oscar-nominated filmmaker will return to earthbound events with the World War II drama “Dunkirk,” which hits theaters in July. The film tells the story of the evacuation of Allied soldiers that took place after 400,000 troops from France, Britain, Canada and Belgium found themselves surrounded by the German army on the beaches of Dunkirk, France.
“As somebody who’s made thrillers before, suspense-action thrillers before — I was looking for the most paradoxical situation,” Nolan said in an interview after his CinemaCon presentation.
“A situation you can’t imagine a way out of. It’s the story of being trapped and surrounded by the enemy at the town of Dunkirk and having the impossible choice of annihilation or surrender. And the fact that the story does not end in annihilation or surrender is why it’s one of the great stories... This is a suspense movie, first and foremost. It’s not so much a war film as a suspense thriller. Dunkirk is one of the great suspense situations of all time.”