The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • A15

BURLINGTONFREEPRESS.COM SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2018 15A LAS VEGAS The sum- mer movie going season roared to life with the rec- ord-breaking opening weekend for but industry leaders want audiences and theater owners to know that a healthy movie business is not just about the superheroes. Last week at the 2018 CinemaCon convention, where movie theater own- ers, exhibitors, celebrities and studio executives gather in Las Vegas to pre- view their upcoming slates, attendees got a look at to come in the next calendar year and worth getting excited about from Tif- fany Haddish to the irre- sistible movie musical. Here are some of the biggest takeaways: Tiffany star keeps rising funny to think that last year at this time, most people know who Haddish was. Her star-making arrive in thea- ters until July and when the cast took the stage at the convention one year ago, she was the unknown alongside her more fam- ous co-stars. This year, the tables were turned.

Haddish brought her high- wattage star and irresist- ibly funny honesty to mul- tiple presentations, in- cluding Universal for with Kevin Hart, and Secret Life of Pets and Paramount for a Tyler Perry comedy and then again for Lion- Haddish had the notori- ously staid crowd in stitches, talking about ev- erything from her aching big toe to how she knows when a movie is going to be funny. Diversity and diverse slates Superheroes and brands are only part of the equation, said basically every studio except Dis- ney, which has become the king of the box relying on both, with brands that include Marvel Pixar and its live-action and anima- tion properties. Instead of trying to copy the Holly- wood behemoth, the other studios talked up their dif- ferences. For some, like Amazon and STX, that meant going for a shock-factor. Ama- zon Studios turned some stomachs showing a scene from Luca remake over lunch.

The thriller, star- ring Dakota Johnson, looks like a cross between and and had some attendees tweeting about being over the images. The smaller distribution label STX went for the shock factor with a red-band trailer for Happytime Mur- which featured Me- lissa McCarthy snorting drugs alongside some puppet detectives in the very R-rated comedy. Others talked up their prestige dramas, like La director Damien Neil Armstrong biopic star- ring Ryan Gosling, and Years a director Steve intense revenge drama with Viola Davis. Diverse slates also meant diverse casts and which, John Fithian, the President and CEO of the National Asso- ciation of Theatre Owners said customers are de- manding. When in doubt, show a musical Have you heard? Greatest was a hit, and the story of its un- conventional success was a refrain heard over and over at the convention.

The Hugh Jackman-led musical all industry models and came back from a deadly opening weekend to become a veri- table global blockbuster. And this year, some of the biggest crowd-pleasers had an overt musical ele- ment, whether it was Cher performing with a dozen back- up dancers to promote Mia: Here We Go some tear-jerking footage from Bradley Star is remake, with Lady Gaga, or a Are The Champi- trailer for the Freddie Mercury biopic not here At the CinemaCon since and Up rocked society, the in- dustry convention took a collective hard pass in ac- knowledging the move- ment at all. Quentin Tarantino, who came under for subjecting Uma Thurman to a dangerous stunt in and a 2003 in- terview about Roman Po- lanski, was given a welcome by Sony Pictures Chairman Tom Rothman, who surprised theater owners with Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio to hype Upon a Time in Popularly known as none ut- tered the name Charles Manson or Sharon Tate Polanski. CinemaCon shows diversity, musicals coming to theaters Lindsey Bahr ASSOCIATED PRESS.