Rami Malek, 'Deadpool 2' & 'Widows' Shine As 20th Century Fox Says Goodbye(?) At CinemaCon

LAS VEGAS –  The CinemaCon presentation for 20th Century Fox got off to a rousing start on Thursday morning.  An intricate musical number to the song “One” from “A Chorus Line” featured dancers in red and black costumes as the “Deadpool” logo slowly came into view overhead.  There was a male dancer with a Deadpool mask on (or one similar to it), but it wasn’t star Ryan Reynolds.  He couldn’t make it to the annual theater owner and exhibitor convention this year.  He did, however, shoot a very, very funny video in complete merc garb to the delight of the audience.

First look of Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”

Set in a Caesars Palace hotel room, Deadpool sits on a bed talking to the camera while Fox Distribution president Chris Aronson is sprawled out behind him.  Deadpool plays with Aronso’s feet and asks the crowd, to camera, when “this self-congratulatory orgy of non-exhibitionists” is gonna start.  Aronson wakes up, hung over in Hugh Jackman’s coat from “The Greatest Showman,” only to find the real Jackman arriving wearing a hotel robe and brushing his teeth.  Deadpool jokes to Jackman that Comcast really “dodged a bullet” by not buying 20th Century Fox (Disney is acquiring them) which earned a huge laugh from the audience.  The two heroes walk off camera, but the video doesn’t end…yet.  From behind the bed, a costumed Pluto dog gets up and groggily walks off the screen.  It was Fox having some fun with their future, but it turned more serious and emotional a few minutes later.

Studio chief Stacey Snider was next and her remarks immediately focused on the long and storied history of 20th.  She said she had no more insight into the expected Fox-Disney merger than the audience did, but it was clear she and the studio were treating the presentation as a potential goodbye.   Disney will likely keep Fox as a label, but the distribution and marketing teams may not last or find themselves merged with their peers at the Mouse House (Searchlight may continue to work independently or not).  That means for the distribution veterans who have work with the nation’s theaters for decades that change may be coming.  Snider’s moving speech was followed by an even more emotionally gutting video tribute focusing on a long list of the studio’s famed releases such as “Titanic,” “The Sound of Music,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Alien,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Castaway” intertwined with some more recent releases.  The edited piece ended with a montage of all the historic 20th Century Fox logos playing to the fabled studio fanfare.   To say it was tear-inducing is an understatement.

As Snider added, however, they are continuing to push forward and that meant previewing their upcoming slate.  Robert Rodriguez’s “Alita: Battle Angel” was up first and, frankly, it looks fine.   It also looks dated.  It feels like an early ’00s release that would be forgotten weeks after its release.  How will that fare in 2018?  Ponder.  There was also an extended trailer for “New Mutants,” er, sorry, from “The Darkest Minds” that makes the whole endeavor look like…”New Mutants” even if it’s based on a series of popular YA fantasy novels.

“The Hate U Give”
George Tillman, Jr. told the audience when he read the first page of the script based on Angie Thomas‘ novel he knew he had to direct it.  The movie centers on Starr (Amandla Stenberg) a teenage girl from a poor, mostly black neighborhood who spends her days at an upscale, prestigious, mostly white private school.  There is the Starr that’s at home and the Starr that’s at school (the one who won’t use slang even if her white friends do).   Her world is shattered when a date with a childhood friend turns into a public incident after a local cop kills him during a traffic stop.  Starr now has to wade through competing agendas to do the right thing for her friend.  The cast includes Regina Hall and Russell Hornsby as her parents along with Anthony Mackie, Issa Rae, Sabrina Carpenter, Algee Smith, Lamar Johnson and Common.  Tillman is a commercial director, but it appears as though he’s fashioned something truly compelling here.  Can we say TIFF world premiere?

“Bad Times At the El Royale”
There was no talent on hand, but director Drew Goddard looks like he has put together a fun and quirky mystery-thriller.  Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, Cynthia Erivo and Dakota Johnson all have prominent roles as visitors to a motel/hotel that is split down the middle of the California/Nevada border. What the guests soon discover, however, is that nothing is what it seems (Bridges looks like a preacher but isn’t) and they are being watched and recorded in each room.  Chris Hemsworth showed up later in the preview, but didn’t his role was unclear.  Not sure if it’s anything more than entertaining fare (nothing wrong with that, mind you), but it immediately jumped to this journalists list of “must see” films.

“Widows”
If we have learned anything in the movies (and on ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder”) you do not want to piss off Viola Davis.   The Oscar winner is at the center of Steve McQueen and Gillian Flynn‘s adaptation of the acclaimed British TV series and finds herself playing a woman must pay back her husband’s criminal debts after he’s been killed (Liam Neeson portrays her husband).  She’s joined by three other wives played by Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo who are forced to join her as they attempt to flip the script on the bastards who killed their significant others.  The footage was inherently commercial, but with the dramatic depth, you’d expect from McQueen who seemingly has a lot more to say about wealth and sexism than the trappings of a standard revenge flick.   Beyond the ladies and Neeson, the cast also feels big with Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Daniel Kaluuya, Lukas Haas and Brian Tyree Henry all getting a moment in the sun. Frankly, it’s an awards player…until it’s possibly not.

“Bohemian Rhapsody”
The drama surrounding Bryan Singer aside (and we’re dying to know who gets director billing), Rami Malek‘s performance is the absolute story here.  Let’s be frank, whoever gets credit for this Queen biopic (perhaps producer Graham King?) clearly has fashioned an entertaining affair, but at this point, it does appear to be a very standard biopic as those go.  Based on the footage shown it’s Malek as Freddie Mercury that will get audiences and Academy members jumping.  Fake teeth or not this is the sort of character transformation we really haven’t witnessed from the “Mr. Robot” star to date.  He may not be singing live, but you’ll absolutely believe he’s channeling the music icon (and, yes, the gay side of his life appears to be a significant part of the movie).   Oh, and it feels like a big ol’ hit too.

Rami-Malek, Bohemian-Rhapsody, Queen

“The Predator”
With his last three films, Shane Black has shown that he can bring new life to familiar genres.  That seems to be the case based on the footage screened for first original “Predator” movie since 2010.  It starts with Rory (Jacob Tremblay) finding Predator armor in a box in his garage.  He plays with a small object in the box he thinks looks like a spaceship.  What he is unaware of is that he’s activated an actual ship circling the earth to enter the atmosphere. As he moves the “toy” around he’s moving the ship and crashing it into a wooded area.  It’s an unexpectedly imaginative sequence.  The rest of the movie appears to be about scientists (including one played by Olivia Munn) who have discovered that the Predators are trying to hybrid with humans (could one be walking among them already?), Rory’s father Quinn (Boyd Holbrook) who has encountered the killer aliens before and the government agent (Sterling K. Brown) who wants to recruit him to help take out this new batch of invaders.  Every actor in the cast looks like they are having a ton of fun (par the course on Black productions) and it really comes across on screen.  What’s best about the preview is that it’s fun enough that if you thought you’d never sit through a “Predator” movie again this installment is doing everything it can to get you to reconsider.

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At the end of Fox’s presentation, a marching band came out and played the studio fanfare one more time.  Aronson then appeared to thank the crowd for their support one last time as they exited the venue to Queen’s rock anthem “We Are the Champions.”  And it was apparent that the lyric “we’ll keep on fighting till the end” seemed to have a special significance considering the studios future.   Judging from their slate today they deserve one.