Warner Bros. previewed its stunning slate of some of the most hotly anticipated upcoming movies at CinemaCon Wednesday — but its tightly scripted format lacked the personality of many rival shows.
Warner is among ten studios presenting its output for the coming months at the four-day Las Vegas convention, where studios tend to allow their stars off the leash to improvise, banter and reveal secrets behind their productions.
The studio flouted that convention, however, eschewing Q&A panels and having its actors read scripted speeches voicing excitement with little in the way of insight or revelation.
For the lion’s share of the presentation, at the Caesar’s Palace hotel, the celebrities were either relatively obscure or were beamed in from elsewhere by video link.
Even the big finish — a personal appearance by Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller and Ray Fisher to promote D.C. movie “The Justice League” — turned into a damp squib.
The stars, who play Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg respectively, left the stage after only a few minutes without uttering a single word, leaving director Jack Snyder to make prepared comments.
“That was lame,” said one delegate as the lights went up and people began to file out of the hotel’s packed Colosseum theatre.
It’s not that the footage of the movies themselves failed to live up to expectations; the crowd shrieked with fright during previews for upcoming horrors films Annabelle Creation and It.
And they howled with laughter during previews of comedies The House, starring Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, and Bastards, the directorial debut of Larry Sher, the cinematographer on The Hangover and its sequels.
The presentation started promisingly, with Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Interstellar) introducing stunning footage from his Second World War movie Dunkirk.
