By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
LAS VEGAS � CinemaCon, formerly known as ShoWest is the annual convention for theater owners in Las Vegas, where Hollywood parades the movies it hopes will be summer's biggest hits ? and stars. USA TODAY reporter Scott Bowles reports on the day's happenings.
By Ethan Miller, Getty Images
Jason Segel and Amy Adams, who grew up watching The Muppet Show and the related movies, hope to get good reviews from Statler and Waldorf when their version of The Muppet Movie bows in November.
By Ethan Miller, Getty Images
Jason Segel and Amy Adams, who grew up watching The Muppet Show and the related movies, hope to get good reviews from Statler and Waldorf when their version of The Muppet Movie bows in November.
March 30
The Force isn't necessarily with 3-D.
Some of Hollywood's most powerful filmmakers invaded CinemaCon Wednesday with words of support and caution for the technology that has prompted studios to rush to shoot and convert movies to 3-D.
George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg headlined a panel on digital filmmaking and the future of 3-D, which drew a packed crowd of theater owners and managers.
3-D, in particular, has split theater owners over whether the multi-million dollar makeover investment is worth the cost. Lately, 3-D films have slowed at the box office.
The filmmakers partly blamed studios for doing rush jobs to convert their movies to 3-D.
"I'm concerned about things that erode the market," said Cameron, director of the 3-D Avatar. "Bad 3-D is one of them."
Lucas said that some studios and filmmakers don't yet know how to integrate digital and 3-D so that it's a tool for storytelling, not a substitute for it.
"Where we are in digital is like 1900 in celluloid," he said.
The panel chastised studios that converted films to 3-D in less than eight weeks, a common practice. Cameron said no movie should be converted in less than six months, if at all.
Poor conversion, Katzenberg said, will doom more than individual films.
"The 3-D that has been done to date has lowered the high bar," Katzenberg, the head of DreamWorks Animation, said. "Anyone who tries to cash in for the quick score is going to mess it up for us all."
Diaz: Not the poster girl for HDTV
Cameron Diaz remembers a decade and a half ago, when the ShoWest convention named her the rising star of tomorrow.
Now she's back to show them they were right.
Diaz, named female star of the year at the convention, now known as CinemaCon, accepted her award Wednesday, though she concedes she's still not sure how she got it.
"Even back then, there really wasn't a plan for my career," she says. "I just took the roles that I viscerally responded to. I'm still doing that. I've got more movies under my belt (since the award), but I don't know that I feel that different or do things much differently. I still love what I'm doing."
If not always what she's seeing. Diaz is one of the few stars who doesn't mind having her mug splashed in IMAX or 3-D. But she's got no patience with high-definition TV.
"I think 3-D is a wonderful tool to change the world you're looking at," she says. "But what I have a problem with is high-def. That's the worst. We spend so much time being careful about what we show, about how something is lit, and high-def comes in and ruins it all. It flattens things, makes them look unnatural. I don't think 3-D will go down that road, because it's an atrocity."
Larry the Cable Guy pulls up in 'Cars' 2
Disney brought stars, footage and its reputation for big sequels to Cinemacon Tuesday night, promising to boost box office with new renditions of Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The studio, which included footage from the Thanksgiving film The Muppets, also offered its first high-profile comic book fare with teaser footage of its comic book tent pole film The Avengers, due in summer 2012.
But Tuesday was about summer 2011, and Larry the Cable Guy, who reprises the voice character Mater in the Pixar cartoon Cars 2, has few doubts he's on another blockbuster.
"It's funny," he says. "People prefer Larry the Cable guy on DVD. They won't fight traffic to see me in a movie. But they will for my voice. They will for a Pixar movie."
He credits the studio for aiming at the Hollywood's key demographic: pre-teens.
"I think Pixar movies are so big because kids see the commercial and can't stop talking about it," he says. "And parents want to get their kids to shut the (expletive) up."
Fourth 'Pirates' film comes ashore in 3-D
Theater owners were anxious Tuesday to get a look at the latest Pirates of the Caribbean installment, the 3-D On Strange Tides, out May 20. While the third installment,At World's End, earned $309 million, it was excoriated by critics and a disappointment to some fans and exhibitors.
Those fears subsided with Tuesday's footage, which included an introduction of director Rob Marshall and 3-D glasses, a first for the Pirates franchise. The film, which seemed to carry darker tones and better effects than the third picture, drew rousing applause from exhibitors gathered for the footage.
"What excited me was working with Johnny" Depp, who has anchored all of the films. "But I also felt, since I was coming fresh to the project, we could bring whole new stories and characters."
And some new technology as well. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer says that while studios have gone overboard on turning movies into three dimensional money-makers, Pirates was ripe for the treatment.
"You can't turn everything into 3D," he says. "You don't want to convert a movie like Dinner with Andre. But this is a natural fit. Pirates of the Caribbean is an adventure, and 3D, when you do it right, puts people in the middle of that adventure."
It's almost time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show
Though they aren't box office titans, the Muppets still hold a dear place among theater owners hearts, who see the comedies as steady family draws. The puppets got the royal reception Tuesday as stars Amy Adams and Jason Segel introduced extended footage.
Afterward, Adams and Segel (who also produced the movie and co-wrote the script), said that Kermit & Co. were early influences in their careers.
Adams, whose character teams with Segel's to reunite the Muppets for a show, says TV was one of her few creative inspirations as a child. "I was one of seven children, and we lived way out in Colorado," she says. "Going to the movie was like going to the moon."
Not so for Segel, who calls the Muppets his first comedic influence. Maybe that's why he can sound like the cranky Muppet judges Statler and Waldorf when he recalls on of his first theater experiences ? one he prays won't be repeated when The Muppets hit screens Nov. 23.
"I remember going to see Dead Poets Society," Segel says. "And I was behind this really old couple. When a character came on screen, the old woman told her husband 'That's the guy who kills himself.' It ruined the movie. I don't mind people talking. But stop giving away the twists!"
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