Universal gathers its stars at CinemaCon

Of the six studio product previews at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Universal Pictures (which sat out last year's inaugural show) brought in the largest star contingent. The Thursday afternoon program, very capably and genially hosted by chairman Adam Fogelson, offered yet more proof that this is going to be a very big summer at the movies.

The session began with a smartly assembled reel marking Universal's 100th anniversary, which reminded the audience just how many iconic classics the studio has produced in the past century, from its 1930s horror legacy to the Spielberg parade of hits to the current Bourne action series. Then it was on to the first industry trailer, for Battleship, which has already made $150 million in overseas markets prior to its mid-May domestic premiere--an unusual release strategy. The trailer cheekily includes skeptical comments from The Hollywood Reporter, Slash.com and Stephen Colbert about the board game adaptation, before establishing its action bona fides. After the clip, stars Taylor Kitsch (late of John Carter) and Brooklyn Decker came out to vouch for the film's military muscle, courtesy of our very own Armed Forces.

For my money the most entertaining celebrity to appear on the Colosseum stage was Charlize Theron, who accompanied Twilight star Kristen Stewart, director Rupert Sanders and producer Joe Roth to promote Snow White and the Huntsman. Fogelson asked her what persuaded her to play the Evil Queen, and the statuesque blonde recalled stating that if she was going to sign on, "we gotta go balls to the wall." A few risque jokes later, Theron revealed that her interpretation of the Queen was inspired by Jack Nicholson in The Shining. That's the kind of statement, she joked, that gets you thrown out of studio casting sessions and back doing independent films "for dirt and water."

Stewart acknowledged that the phenomenal success of her Twilight series has been "really unique," and called the role of Snow White "the perfect choice for me." The combination of the cast and the vision of first-time feature director Sanders (a top talent in the world of commercials) led her to choose the project "from the gut."

Fogelson told the audience that his July 6 release Savages, Oliver Stone's gritty tale of young American marijuana dealers who must deal with a vicious Mexican cartel, is the Stone we know from movies like Natural Born Killers. Stone appeared on stage with three members of his cast: Kitsch (again), Salma Hayek and John Travolta. The veteran director approached the project as more than just an action thriller (though the trailer certainly promises nasty thrills), striving for an authentic portrait of California's desire for weed clashing with Mexico's crime epidemic.

Travolta said he had wanted to work with Stone for over 25 years, and that their first project together reminds him of his 1994 triumph, Pulp Fiction.  The cast also includes Blake Lively and Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass), and Travolta found it especially gratifying working with "beautiful and decent people doing awful things."

No doubt the biggest thrill for many in the audience was the chance to see and hear from "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane. who is making his feature directing debut this summer with the R-rated comedy Ted. MacFarlane also provides the voice for the titular teddy bear who comes alive thanks to a lonely child's wish and grows to irresponsible adulthood along with his human best bud, Mark Wahlberg.

Fogelson seemed generally nervous about what might come out of MacFarlane's mouth, and indeed at one point a dare by the comic auteur threatened to take this CinemaCon ceremony into NC-17 territory. But both MacFarlane and co-star Mila Kunis (who turned up earlier in the week to promote Disney's Wizard of Oz prequel) agreed that MacFarlane's outrageous comic sensibility also possesses "a very sweet backbone."

In any event, Fogelson confided that he's never heard his boss Ron Meyer laugh so hard at a Universal picture, and the trailer for Ted had the CinemaCon audience exploding with laughter too.

The final celebrity sighting of the program was CinemaCon Male Star of the Year Jeremy Renner, who's taken over the Bourne franchise from Matt Damon. Renner professed no hesitation about succeeding Damon, mainly because he liked the material and director Tony Gilroy and there's no point trying to anticipate people's reactions. Like his Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol co-star Tom Cruise, Renner insists on doing many of his own stunts, since he feels authenticity is crucial to the Bourne series.

The Universal program generously also included first glimpses of projects that are far, far from competion: the musical Les Miserables, the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller Oblivion, the supernatural cop comedy R.I.P.D., The Fast and the Furious 6 and a rare Universal 3D project, 47 Ronin, which Fogelson described as like "300, The Matrix and The Last Samurai picking up swords and beating the shit out of each other."

Earlier on Thursday, 20th Century Fox also previewed its upcoming slate, and though the program featured only one filmmaker, the lineup still impressed. Ridley Scott's Prometheus looks like a sensational return to the science-fiction horrors of his classic Alien; the bizarrely high-concept Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has a most tantalizing trailer; Ice Age: Continental Drift seems a sure bet to continue the huge run of that animated series; Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill appear poised to overcome the problematic title of their alien-fighting comedy Neighborhood Watch; Taken 2 looks like it has all the elements to bring out fans of Liam Neeson's previous action hit; and the Viola Davis-Maggie Gyllenhaal drama Won't Back Down, about the inequities of our school systems, seems to have real substance to go with its inspirational message. And for Christmas, Billy Crystal and Bette Midler may experience a comedy comeback, judging by the laughs for their Parental Guidance trailer.

Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman also ran down a list of future movies with familiar elements: A Good Day to Die Hard, Wolverine, a Percy Jackson sequel, a new Planet of the Apes chapter, Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig in a remake of the Fox chestnut The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and the return of comedy duo Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in The Internship.

The lone talent appearance was by director Ang Lee to introduce two sequences from his ambitious 3D production Life of Pi. Like Hugo by his fellow CinemaCon panelist Martin Scorsese, this is a big-scale fantasy film that proves 3D is being taken very seriously as an artistic tool by some of the world's leading moviemakers. The two scenes, involving a fierce storm at sea and a later onslaught of flying fish, are truly unlike any 3D imagery you've seen before--visionary depictions of Yann Martel's tale of a teenage boy trapped at sea on a small boat with a Bengal tiger. After each sequence, Lee charmingly reminded the audience, "That was unfinished," and he described his efforts to conquer "a new film language." "I hope it doesn't feel like a gimmick, but an attempt to put you in an emotional space."