MTV Movie Awards: Hunger Games nabs best film honours; shirtless Zac Efron attention
Los Angeles: Last year, the MTV Movie Awards moved up its broadcast date from June to April to incorporate a summer movie plug-fest. Sunday night's show cemented that change as clips from anticipated blockbusters debuted at the madcap ceremony.
Now in its 22nd year, the MTV Movie Awards show has become an important event for Hollywood studios. And, oh yes, there were some awards, too.
Last year's show, which saw an average of 3.8 million viewers, up from 3.2 million for the previous year's telecast, included new footage from "Iron Man 3" and the world premiere of "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" trailer, which was introduced by Liam Hemsworth, one of the film's stars.
Sure, an abundance of golden popcorn-shaped prizes were again presented for fun fair, like the award for best shirtless performance, which Zac Efron accepted, well, shirtless. But it's the summer movie teasers - and the stars attached to them - that really make the show.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone (who will also appear in Woody Allen's "Magic in the Moonlight," opening July 25) and Jamie Foxx star in the seventh installment of Sony's "Spider-Man" franchise, which kicks off the summer movie season on May 2. The trio introduced a film clip showing Spider-Man (Garfield) and the sparkling blue villain Electro (Foxx) battling in New York's Times Square.
Fox's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" was touted with an intro by Ellen Page, who plays Shadowcat. The film, out May 23, sees the X-Men joining forces with their younger selves and introduces a number of new mutants - Blink, Sunspot, Warpath and Bishop.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, star of Warner Bros.' "Godzilla," which opens May 16, presented the award for best fight. A short clip of the film, showing the monster preparing to wreak havoc, aired before Taylor-Johnson appeared onstage.
Seth Rogen, Dave Franco and Efron, who lead Universal Pictures' comedy "Neighbors," out May 9, presented the award for best kiss.
No clip was shown for Disney-Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy," a bit of a superhero spoof set in space, but Chris Pratt, the star of the film, out Aug. 1, checked in with a long speech encouraging viewers to vote for their favorite nominees online.
First-look footage from Fox's "The Fault in Our Stars," starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, showed the beginnings of the on-screen couple's romance in the heartfelt comedy.
Mark Wahlberg, who received the generation award, touted his upcoming "Transformers: Age of Extinction," saying the Paramount Pictures' flick would be the biggest movie of 2014. Some of the crew of the hit HBO show "Entourage" presented Wahlberg with his award, and the presence of Adrian Grenier, Jerry Ferrara and Kevin Dillon reminded viewers the "Entourage" movie is being readied for 2015.
Channing Tatum will appear in the buddy cop comedy "22 Jump Street," out June 13, with Jonah Hill (who picked up the best comedic performance award for "The Wolf of Wall Street") and the sci-fi fantasy "Jupiter Ascending," out July 18, with Mila Kunis (who scored the title of best villain for "Oz the Great and Powerful").
Both Kunis, looking very pregnant in a short, loose black dress, and Hill presented Tatum with his Trailblazer Award.
And not to be missed was Josh Hutcherson's mention of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died Feb. 2 from a combination of heroin, cocaine and other drugs.
Hoffman appeared in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," which earned the evening's top prize of movie of the year.
"If Philip were here he would think this was really cool," said Hutcherson, one of the stars of "Hunger Games" and the recipient of the best male performance award.
"To have him in our movie was one of the coolest things," Hutcherson said. "We think about him every day on set. This definitely goes out to him as well."
"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1" will be released later this year.
Ellie Goulding sang "Beating Heart," while Zedd took the stage for "Find You." Both tracks appear on the "Divergent" soundtrack.
Host Conan O'Brien kicked off the ceremony, which aired live from the Nokia Theatre, with a challenge to gain 50 celebrity cameos for his opening segment. And of course he came through with many stars like Paul Rudd and Adam Sandler, who have films expected to be released in the coming months.
The MTV awards had some stiff competition from other networks on Sunday night, including the latest installment of HBO's popular "Game of Thrones" and the final season premiere of AMC's "Mad Men."
