ShoWest officially starts tomorrow, but today was a special International Day strictly for the International Delegates attending the conference to discuss issues of importance to exhibitors and theatre owners outside the United States. Most of the day will be covered in separate pieces, but the big event of the day was the International Distribution Marketing Presentations when four of the major studios presented footage, trailers and marketing plans for their 2007 line-up (and previewing movies for 2008 as well).
It was an exciting two and a half hours where we were allowed to see some new trailers, new footage and some cool marketing ideas that will be used mainly outside of our shores. Since there's a lot of ground to cover, we'll start with Universal, who capped off their preview with an unfinished action sequence from Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum. (Note: Before the presentation, the press attending were asked not to write about this event due to the amount of unfinished footage shown. Because of this, we won't discuss anything in full detail but just give the reader some idea what was shown with the disclaimer that what's described may not make it to the final films.)
Universal Pictures really got the best spot in the line-up by kicking things off, as they ran through an impressive line-up of films that they'd be releasing in 2007 as well as a couple films that would be released here through Focus Features and Rogue Pictures.
It kicked off with a production presentation for the summer movie Evan Almighty starring Steve Carell, but it wasn't as much the trailer as it was a collection of on-set footage and interviews with a few of the key players including Tom Shadyac, most of them talking about the difficulties with coordinating the different animals while making the movie.
Next up was a clip from Mr. Bean's Holiday, once again starring Rowan Atkinson, in which he did a bit of street performing. First, he did a bit of impressive poppin' to Shaggy's "Mr. Boombastic" and then there was a longer segment where he reenacted and performed a lip-sync rendition of the Puccini aria "O mio babbino caro."
This was followed with a long presentation of footage from the upcoming Hot Fuzz, which has been setting records in the UK and is certainly getting a big push at ShoWest, even being screened on Wednesday. The footage shown from the movie included lots of obcenity and surprisingly, some of the gorier scenes in the movie, but I guess this being an international audience, they didn't have to be concerned with the censorship of the MPAA.
This was confirmed by showing the full red band trailer for Knocked Up--all of Universal's R-rated presentation would be countered later by Disney's PG-rated offering--which was followed by a brief preview of The Bourne Ultimatum with more footage promised at the end.
They next showed a couple stills from I Now Prounounce You Chuck and Larry, starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James, and a short scene basically of the two guys being married (by Rob Schneider as the rabbi no less) but when he tells them to kiss and James goes in (much like his scene with Will Smith in Hitch), but Sandler slugs him instead and says, "That's how we roll!" Should be a funny movie.
That was followed by an excellent early look of the historic drama Atonement, reuniting Pride & Prejudice director and star Joe Wright and Keira Knightley with James McAvoy, and to be released here by Focus Feature. The footage was impressive, cut together in a way that really could have played as a long-form trailer for the film. At one point, Knightley comes out of a fountain wearing a soaked white dress, which is basically see-through... yes, it looks like she's going full frontal on this one, good for her (and us)! Frankly, this moving presentation impressed me the most, because this really looks like it might be a strong Oscar contender for Focus next year.
Next up was a collection of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews from Peter Berg's The Kingdom which looks like a solid action-thriller with a bit of politics thrown in ala Syriana. It's mostly set in Saudi Arabia and the footage shown included the panic as a suicide bomber blows up. Actually, there were a lot of explosions shown narrated by interviews with members of the cast.
If the Atonement pseudo-trailer was impressive, than it was nothing compared to the gorgeous scenes shown from Shekhar Kapur's The Golden Age (though the titles preceded it with "Elizabeth"). This is the long-anticipated follow-up by Kapur to his Oscar-winning Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett reprising the role of Elizabeth I. This looks like another solid Oscar flick with a number of gorgeous scenes showing the Spanish Armada and bits that included Clive Owen and John Hurt. (Like The Good Shepherd, this mini-presentation listed each Oscar-winning and nominated actor along with their Oscar pedigree, just to make it more obvious where Universal is going with this.)
Nothing was shown from Ridley Scott's American Gangster or Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War (just to add a third Oscar chance for Universal) though there were presentations letting exhibitors that know they're on the way. Universal also hyped up a few of next year's movies including Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy 2: The Golden Army; Leatherheads, George Clooney's third film as a director co-starring Renee Zellweger; the musical Mamma Mia!, and even The Mummy III. There was no footage for any of these since they haven't started shooting, but there were nice presentations introducing the properties and what to expect, showing that Universal is already putting their full support behind the films.
The big thing though was the footage shown from Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, once against starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. The extended but unfinished scene was essentially a chase through the streets and roofs of an Arab village leading to a fight between Bourne and a gunman stalking him. Julia Stiles was very prominent in the sequence, though at first, she looked a bit like Franka Potente from the first two movies as she's sporting redish hair with blonde-streaked highlights, a very cool look for her. There's not much to say about the scene which was heavily-edited, though it was obvious that it's by no means finished. Essentially, Bourne is trying to stay ahead of the gunman but he winds up being chased by the police across the rooftops. After losing them, he sees Stiles trying to get away from the gunman, and he leaps out of one window and into the window of a building across the alley and starts kicking the gunman's butt as Stiles watches on and tries to stay out of it. Looked pretty cool, and it probably will be even cooler once it's finished.
Check out the other blog posts for reports on the Sony, Paramount and Disney presentations.
