You’ve got to give it to Warner Bros, they don’t mess around. Not content to bring out the stars from a couple of its biggest upcoming hits, WB managed to corral the leads from almost all the films on its slate, parading A-listers through the Caesar’s Palace Coliseum like so many cocktail waitresses. But among all the many exciting properties on display, the one that most impressed was a first look at Ryan Coogler’s Rocky spin-off, Creed.
Walking on stage accompanied by stars Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, Coogler described how this very personal film sprang from his relationship with his own father. Starring Jordan as Adonis Creed, son of Carl Weathers’ Apollo, who died fighting Ivan Danko (Dolph Lundgren) in Rocky IV, the film is the story of a boy born into boxing royalty but who wants to earn his right to step into the ring with heart and fists. “I wasn’t sure if people were going to take this as Rocky seven but it’s really not,” said Stallone. “My story’s been told. This is the beginning of a new era, a whole new story.”
The trio then introduced the first trailer for the film, which begins with Jordan shadowboxing and preparing to walk down to the ring for a fight. We see him in another scene walking into Rocky’s restaurant and asking the former fighter to train him before a series of crunching fight seqences and training montages. The footage looked very promising with Jordan himself especially impressive in the lead.
But as notable as Jordan was, he couldn’t hold a candle to Johnny Depp. Scott Cooper unveiled the first trailer for his Whitey Bulger biopic, Black Mass, showing a truly terrifying Depp as the Bostonian criminal, sporting a receding hairline and icy blue eyes. Talking to David Harbour over a dinner table, Depp goes full Pesci on him for sharing a family recipe. It all gets very tense before Depp bursts into laughter and everyone sweats uncomfortably. Awards may be heading Depp’s way in the near future if this scene was anything to go by.
Also getting its footage debut was John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Vacation sequel. Ed Helms and Christina Applegate were on hand to introduce the film, which has tongue firmly in cheek. Beginning with some footage from the 1983 original (for those who haven’t seen it) the clip was arch from the get-go with Helms’s Rusty Griswold telling his son about the epic childhood vacation, which he plans to re-enact by taking his own kids on a road trip to Wally World. “I don’t even know about the original vacation,” quips his son. “This Vacation will stand on its own,” replies Rusty. Clearly going for the full R rating, the footage was funny and suitably risqué, with a glory hole gag, Rusty mis-explaining ‘rim jobs’ to his son and a few nice callbacks to the original. The highlight was Chris Hemsworth’s appearance as Audrey Griswold’s husband, who brought the house down with an enormous prosthetic penis stuffed down his boxers. The final line of the trailer? “This vacation sucks my balls.” Well, quite.
And speaking of revisiting familiar territory, Ericson Core’s Point Break remake also got an unveiling today, with stars Teresa Palmer and Luke Bracey along for the ride. Rather than following the original’s surfing focus, with a sideline in skydiving, the reboot has gone for a portfolio of all-out adrenaline sports. Big wave riding, rock-climbing and dirt bikes were all present in the footage shown. However, the most impressive and quite likely the film’s major visual set piece is an incredible flight suit sequence that blows the one in Transformers 3 out of the sky. Four guys in said airborne attire hurtle over forests and fields before soaring through a deep gorge cut out of the mountain. It’s an eye-popping visual made all the more impressive by the fact that it’s not CG but rather an entirely practical sequence undertaken by a group of extreme sports all-stars, who were also present. With other feats including a mid-air heist involving skydivers stealing money from a plane mid-flight, there’s more than a hint of Fast & Furious in this Point Break’s DNA – ironic given that the first F&F was heavily inspired by Kathryn Bigelow’s original.
Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon pimped out their buddy comedy Hot Pursuit, while Carla Gugino and The Rock gave San Andreas the big thumbs up, Johnson bringing down the house before showing off Emmerich-levels of apocalyptic destruction with footage of LA being sucked into the Earth. Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult and Tom Hardy walked on for Mad Max: Fury Road, also showing some footage that mainly revolved around Theron’s Furiosa getting shot at before large scale car wars kicked off.
The cast of Entourage came on to introduce the recent trailer for that movie, while Channing Tatum, Matt Boemer, Joe Manganiello, Adam Rodriguez and Kevin Nash walked out and set hearts a-fluttering by pretentding to strip off for Magic Mike XXL. “Rule number one of being a male stripper,” said Tatum, re-buttoning his shirt. “Never give away what people will be prepared to pay for.”
With other titles including Blumhouse horror The Gallows, Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E., De Niro/Hathaway comedy The Intern and Joe Wright’s Pan, this was a strong lineup indeed. The only disappointment was from perhaps the most anticipated title of all, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, which simply put on an airing of the recent trailer, disappointing those hoping to see an extended glimpse behind cape and cowl.
from Empire News
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