Paramount Pictures' CinemaCon Presentation - RINGS, TMNT 2, BEN HUR, JACK REACHER 2, BAYWATCH, and More
CinemaCon 2016 kicked off last night at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and Paramount Pictures took the stage to show off their upcoming slate of films. Those films included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Ben-Hur, Star Trek: Beyond, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Rings, Story of Your Life, XXX 3, and Baywatch.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows:
Will Arnett and Megan Fox came out on stage to introduce some footage from the upcoming Ninja Turtles sequel. What they showed was basically the most recent trailer for the film, which you can watch here. However, they did include an extended scene at the end with the turtles crash landing a giant plane. It was extremely over-the-top, and if you were a fan of the first film, chances are you're going to love this movie. If you didn't like the first film, I'm not sure if this sequel will win you over or not. I guess we're just going to have to wait and see!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows hits theaters on June 3rd. 2016.
Ben Hur:
Actor Jack Huston came out to introduce the footage for Ben Hur. The first part of the footage was the trailer that was released a few weeks ago. In case you missed it, you can watch it here. They tacked some new footage at the end of the trailer though that offered us an extended look at the chariot battle race in the Colosseum. I've gotta admit, that chariot race looks like it's going to be insanely intense. There is just so much chaos in that scene with men being killed, horses running up into the packed Colosseum, chariot destruction, and more. Of course, at the end it all comes down to Ben Hur and his brother. The footage we saw ended with the exact same footage the trailer ended with.
The film comes out on August 12th, 2016.
Mission: Impossible 6 and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back:
Tom Cruise recorded a video for the presentation to introduce the first footage screened for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and talk a little bit about Mission: Impossible 6. Christopher McQuarrie is back to direct M:I6, and Cruise promised that there will be "more incredible set pieces, stunts…and what I think is a very entertaining and compelling story.” I'm a big fan of the of the M:I franchise so I can't wait to see what they give us next time around.
As for Never Go Back, the film reunites Cruise with director Ed Zwick (The Last Samurai), and the actor explained that the film is about an “analog character in a digital world,” and went on to say that it would feature “real classic movie, movie stuff.” I thought the first film had that same classic movie vibe to it, so if they bring that back for the sequel... awesome! We then got to see the footage.
In that footage we see a group of men who had been brutally beaten on the street outside of a diner. The police show up and ask if a car came and ran these men over. A bystander tells the officer that they were taken out by one man, and that that one man was still in the diner where he sat drinking his coffee. The cop confronts Jack Reacher and him he’s looking at 10 to 20 years for aggravated assault. Jack proceeds to confidently tells them that two things will happen. The phone will ring, and then the officer will be the one wearing the cuffs on his way to prison. As the cop laughs at the remark, the phone rings. It then cuts to an action shot of Jack masterfully killing two men through a car window. We also get to see Cobie Smulders in action as she is on the run from the authorities joins. Smulders' character had the same job in the military that Jack had. Jack goes on to blow some stuff up, and as Smulders is driving him around, she questions Jack about his actions and tells him that she believes that he is enjoying all of it. The look on his face tells her that of course he is!
I'm so excited for this movie, it looks supremely badass! It comes out in theaters on October 21st, 2016.
Rings:
They showed off the first footage from their upcoming horror film Rings, which is a continuation of The Ring franchise. They hope to bring us one Rings movie every October until people get tired of it. I am a huge fan of the first movies in the franchise, but this new one looks way too forced.
We see a male character talking to a female character on an airplane that is going through some heavy turbulence. He tells the girls that he watched a tape and that directly after he received a phone call saying that he would die in seven days. The time on the plane will go into the seventh day. As he is telling her this his nose starts to bleed and then the turbulence intensifies and he goes flying down the aisle near the cockpit. The cockpit door bursts open, and we seen a monitor on the dashboard that starts to flicker, then distort. As the guy is looking at the screen, the creepy Samara girl starts to crawl out of it, and then the guy dies.
Story of Your Life:
Jeremy Renner and Amy Adams came out to introduce footage from their upcoming sci-fi film Story of Your Life. Renner said, “It’s Amy’s story, and there’s not enough cinema in Hollywood where we have a strong, badass, intelligent female lead. I think that’s important.” The two actors play members of a team brought in to help figure out the intentions of an alien race that has invaded Earth.
The footage they showed was very dark and moody. It starts out with Amy's character talking about the day "they" arrived. As she is teaching an almost empty college class, one of the student's phones start going off, and when Amy asks if she has any news to share we cut to a news report showing alien objects that have landed all around Earth. Forrest Whitaker also stars in the film, and it's at this moment that he shows up in her office and asks her if she would help translate a recording of aliens. Apparently, deciphering languages is her specialty. The recording features someone asking the alien why they are here, and the response is very creepy and strange sounding. We then cut to Amy's character in a helicopter with Renner, and they are headed to one of the spacecrafts, which stands upright and is extremely tall and kind of shaped like an elongated egg. It's levitating about 50 to 100 feet over the ground in a giant field. They throw on some hazmat suits and head on into the ship where they are met with a very bright light, and then we get a glimpse of the aliens, which kind of look like floating squids, but we really don't get a good look at them. Of course, Adams wants to communicate with them, so she puts her hand on a glass separating them, then a big tentacle slams into the other side. There's a news report that claims the aliens may be trying to pit humans against each other, which is definitely an interesting premise. There's some discussion regarding the aliens, and Amy insists that if the aliens stay, the humans have to stay. The footage then cuts to a series of chaotic shots and action with explosions, and we see a craft fall from the sky.
The movie comes out sometime in 2016.
XXX: The Return of Xander Cage:
A pre-recorded video was shown featuring Vin Diesel on the set of the film in Toronto. He introduces his co-stars Nina Dobrev and Donnie Yen, and he just gushed about how happy he is to be making this movie and how awesome it's going to be. He also talks about how amazing the cast is and really was trying hard to get people hyped up for the movie. He thanked everyone in the room for their help with his success and that was pretty much it. No footage was shown.
The movie will be released in 2017.
Allied:
This is Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard's World War II drama, which is being directed by Robert Zemeckis. Pitt and Cotillard play two assassins who fall in love during a mission to kill a German official. They end up marrying, but their romance is cut short when Pitt learns a devastating secret about his wife that prompts him to turn on her. Paramount is really hoping that this movie will end up being an Oscar contender. They ended up showing off some footage from the movie, and it really looks like a great and intense film. Explaining that footage really isn't that interesting, though.
Allied comes out on November 23rd, 2017.
Baywatch:
The presentation concluded by showing off some hilarious and fun footage from Dwayne Johnson's Baywatch movie. They started it off with a video of Johnson from the set of the film introducing the actors who will be playing the main characters in the story. Zac Efron as Matt, Alexandra Daddario as Summer, Kelly Rohrbach as CJ, Priyanka Chopra as Victoria, and then there's the comic relief, Jon Bass as Ronnie who says he's not in the movie for his body but also "sex stuff." The Rock promises that the whole team will at CinemaCon next year and concludes with, "This is our beach, bitch!"
The footage shown was definitely red-band stuff, because Johnson and Efron were dropping f-bombs all over the place. It starts out with Johnson diving into some water because that's what lifeguards do. There's another scene in which Efron runs up to Johnson and his lifeguard team with some donuts, and he's late for training. Johnson criticizes him, telling him that Little Johnny died while he was in line waiting to buy donuts. We get some crazy beach party shots and they end on Efron checking out Daddario's boobs, and she calls him out on it. They have a fun little exchange in which he does end up staring at them, and he tells her he wasn't staring at them until she mentioned it. There's then a conversion between Summer and CJ in which Summer asks, "Why does this suit ride so far up our asses?" To which CJ replies, “I designed it that way, it makes us swim faster." We later see a scene of Johnson and Efron having an exercise contest, flipping tires. Then we get another montage of shots with more parties, something going on with drugs, and some action. I probably butchered that footage, but that's what I remember. It's a helluva a lot funnier than I made it out to be, but I can't remember the dialogue, dammit!
One other thing that took place during the presentation was Simon Pegg presented J.J. Abrams with the CinemaCon Showman of the Year Award.
I was really hoping for a surprise announcement for Jackass 4!