• Festivals

CinemaCon Trade Show

CinemaCon, the annual theater owner’s confab takes place every year in Las Vegas. It’s where exhibitors get a preview of the upcoming slates presented by studios eager to tease bookings on their movie screens. To that end studio execs offer sneak-peeks of trailers and scenes from hot titles still in production to the crowds that gather in cavernous hotel ballrooms, often with walk-on appearances by filmmakers and stars. This year films previewed included Amazing Spiderman 2, Godzilla, Fifty Shades of Grey and Fast & Furious 7. Angelina Jolie made an appearance to promote her upcoming Unbroken, Jon Hamm received the Excellence award and superstar director Chris Nolan was honored (see our story). But CinemaCon also has a commercial trade show that showcases the “nuts and bolts” of the business: The latest in projectors, “seating technology” and the ever-popular vending sector (which as everybody knows, is after all where theaters make most of their revenue). The HFPA’s Scott Orlin and Mirai Konishi took a tour of the floor.