Warner Bros. launched their CinemaCon panel this evening with a preview of their entire 2013 slate, including Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Todd Phillips’ The Hangover Part III, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, Noam Murro’s 300: Rise of an Empire, James Wan’s The Conjuring, Rawson Marshall Thurber’s We’re the Millers, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity and Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Luhrmann appeared in a video introduction for The Great Gatsby, explaining that the 3D is designed to let audiences truly experience the acting first and foremost. The film, which boasts a cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke, hits both 3D and 2D theaters May 10.
Offering a sort of extended trailer, The Great Gatsby played up the film’s extravagant production design, bringing to life F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 New York. Among the music over the footage was a version of Lana Del Rey’s “Will You Still Love Me?”
Although The Hangover Part III showed only the most recent trailer (which you can check out by clicking here), Phillips himself took to the stage to introduce it, joking that he doesn’t think he’s going to have a problem going head to head with Fast & Furious 6 on the same May 24 release date.
Introduced by Snyder, Man of Steel revealed the brand new trailer, which you can watch for yourself by clicking here. The film itself hits regular theaters and IMAX June 14.
Del Toro was next to take the stage, showing off the same special presentation-only trailer for Pacific Rim that he revealed at WonderCon last month. You can read our original report on the footage by clicking here.
Introduced by Murro, 300: Rise of an Empire showed off the very first footage from the August 2 release, primarily focused on the building of armies on the part of both Eva Green’s Artemisia and Rodrigo Santoro’s Xerxes and glimpses of the film’s enormous sea battles.
Filmed to look very much like Snyder’s original 300, Rise of an Empire boasts a seafaring battle spread across hundreds of vessels and the ocean itself. There’s even a few shots of a warrior on a horse leaping from boat to boat to continue the combat.
Next up, The Conjuring showed off the most recent trailer that shifts the focus to Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson’s Lorraine and Ed Warren, a pair of real life paranormal investigators. You can check it out by clicking here. Featuring a cast that also includes Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor, Joey King, Shanley Caswell, Haley McFarland, Mackenzie Foy, Kyla Deaver and Sterling Jerins, The Conjuring hits theaters July 19.
Showing off footage for the first time, Thurber’s We’re the Millers was met with a very positive response from the CinemaCon crowd. Definitely playing up its R rating, the comedy follows the misadventures of David Burke (Jason Sudeikis) who, ordered by his boss (Ed Helms) to transport marijuana across the Mexican border, decides to assemble a perfect family as a cover. He enlists the aide of a stripper, Rose (Jennifer Aniston), and two hired kids Kenny (Will Poulter) and Casey (Emma Roberts) to travel along with him using fake identities.
Some of the big laughs from the footage came from a scene in Helms’ character’s office, which is surrounded by a wall-sized aquarium. Helms brags that he’s just added an orca whale and it can be seen in the background, attacking and devouring all the other creatures in the tank, including a shark. Another scene showed Kenny having been bitten in the crotch by a tarantula. Dropping his pants, he shows off one of his testicles, swollen to comic proportions.
Fans of Aniston in Horrible Bosses are likely to enjoy her take on Rose as well. There were quite a few shots of her in various wigs and outfits performing lap dances and, later in the film, she tries to prove to Mexican drug dealers that she is, indeed, a stripper after all and does an impromptu routine in lingerie.
Prisoners, which is still in production, revealed a full scene that establishes the film’s plot. The characters, several different families, have all gathered for Thanksgiving, but soon find that two little girls have vanished from the festivities. Since the girls were last seen in the proximity of a mysterious RV parked outside their house, Hugh Jackman’s Keller Dover (the father of one of the girls) becomes determined to find them before it’s too late.
A key scene has Dover in a car with Jake Gyllenhaal’s Detective Loki discussing the case and nearly breaking down with worry, knowing that if the girls aren’t found within a week, they’re likely to never be found. Loki tries to calm Dover down, reminding him that it hasn’t been a week yet, but it is already day six.
Understated and offering a very bleak, realistic look, Prisoners is set for release on September 20 and, if the rest of the film matches the tone of what CinemaCon had to offer, it’s very likely going to be an early awards contender.
Speaking of prestige releases, Gravity revealed a first trailer that, while it showed off stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, really let the film’s impressive special effects speak for themselves. Set in orbit of the Earth, both talents play astronauts on a routine mission. They’re in the middle of a spacewalk when something hits their shuttle and completely obliterates it, leaving both souls tethered to one another with no hope left for survival as they drift into the emptiness of outer space.
Gravity hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on October 4.
The presentation concluded with a special message from Peter Jackson, apologizing for not having completed footage from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but teasing some behind-the-scenes shots (including glimpses of Orlando Bloom’s return as Legolas and Evangeline Lilly’s debut as Tauriel). Jackson also noted that the film’s first trailer should be ready in the next few weeks.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug hits 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters December 13.
