CinemaCon 2018, Day 4: Big Screen Achievement Awards

(photo by Michael Dequina)

With all business matters and breaking news, from the studios selling their product for the year to come to vendors peddling the latest in cinema technologies and concessions offerings to exhibitors voicing and tending to their various industry concerns, firmly in the rear view, CinemaCon 2018 came to its close with the Thursday night, no-worries tradition of the Big Screen Achievement Awards, honoring notable acting and filmmaking talent, most of whom involved in upcoming releases featured throughout the week at the various studio presentations. This year's complete list of honorees:

• Breakthrough Producer of the Year: Gabrielle Union
• Action Star of the Year: Taron Egerton
• Breakthrough Performer of the Year: Lil Rel Howery
• Cinema Spotlight Award: Anna Kendrick
• Director of the Year: Ryan Coogler
• Award of Excellence in Acting: Felicity Jones
• Female Star of Tomorrow: Tiffany Haddish
• CinemaCon Vanguard Award: Jonah Hill
• CinemaCon Visionary Award: Jack Black
• Cinema Icon Award: Samuel L. Jackson
• Comedy Star of the Year: Kate McKinnon
• Male Star of the Year: Benicio del Toro
• Female Star of the Year: Dakota Johnson
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Jodie Foster

As in previous years, a pre-awards show press conference at the OMNIA Nightclub adjacent to the show venue of the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Celebrity arrival times being unpredictable and still photographers and television news crews on the carpet being the awards winners' first, top priority stop, not every award ever stops by for the press conference stop. That said, this year marked an all-time low as far as honorees coming through, with only five of the fourteen stopping by. Below are the full videos of the quintet's sessions.

Taron Egerton, Action Star of the Year

Lil Rel Howery, Breakthrough Performer of the Year

Jodie Foster, Lifetime Achievement Award recipient

Anna Kendrick, Cinema Spotlight Award recipient,
with her A Simple Plan director Paul Feig

Felicity Jones, Award of Excellence in Acting recipient

Unlike last year, there was perfect honoree attendance at the Big Screen Achievement Awards show proper. (Director of the Year for 2017, Jordan Peele, had to miss the ceremony due to high winds in Los Angeles preventing air travel to Los Vegas in time.) Natalie Morales, host of Access and co-host of its daytime spinoff Access Live, returned as host for show for the second consecutive year.

(Very special thanks to Heather Lewandoski, Corey Barger, and the entire team at Rogers & Cowan for all their helpful and generous assistance at the convention, as well as Mitch Neuhauser and the CinemaCon crew)

The Movie Report wants to attend all your film special events! Please send any and all invitations to this address. Thanks!

F3PR: Tiffany Haddish to receive CinemaCon Female Star of Tomorrow Award

PRESS RELEASE

TIFFANY HADDISH TO RECEIVE
“CINEMACON® 2018
STAR OF TOMORROW AWARD”

HADDISH’S NEXT FILM, NIGHT SCHOOL,
TO BE RELEASED BY UNIVERSAL PICTURES
ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

WASHINGTON D.C. (February 13, 2018) – Tiffany Haddish will receive the “CinemaCon® Female Star of Tomorrow Award,” it was announced today by Mitch Neuhauser, Managing Director of CinemaCon. CinemaCon, the official convention of National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), will be held April 23 - 26, 2018 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Haddish will be presented with this special honor at the “CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards” ceremony, which takes place on the evening of Thursday, April 26, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, hosted by the Coca-Cola Company—the official presenting sponsor of CinemaCon.

“Since breaking out on the big screen with her showstopping role in Girls Trip, Tiffany Haddish has established herself as one of the most sought-after comedic talents in film,” noted Neuhauser. “With her unfiltered confidence and signature humor, she is sure to have audiences rolling in the aisles for years to come.”

On September 28, 2018, Haddish can be seen starring alongside Kevin Hart in Night School. Hart and producer Will Packer, who partnered for the hit Ride Along and the Think Like a Man series, bring their signature style to the film that is based on a story by Hart. The comedy from Haddish’s Girls Trip director Malcolm D. Lee follows a group of misfits who are forced to attend adult classes in the longshot chance they’ll pass the GED exam. Co-stars Taran Killam, Rob Riggle and Romany Malco join Hart and Haddish on-screen for the film that Hart produces for his Hartbeat Productions, and Packer via his Will Packer Productions.

First showing her talent for stand-up comedy as a child, Haddish was steered toward stand-up by her social worker, who enrolled her into the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp for children. She was an early comedic standout who first appeared on Def Comedy Jam, Who’s Got Jokes? and Reality Bites. In August 2017 she debuted her first comedy special for Showtime, titled Tiffany Haddish: SHE Ready! From the Hood to Hollywood. On the small screen, she was a series regular on NBC’s The Carmichael Show and landed recurring roles on the soap-opera series If Loving You Is Wrong and Real Husbands of Hollywood. She can next be seen starring alongside Tracy Morgan in the new series The Last O.G. She recently starred on the big screen in the blockbuster Girls Trip and in Keanu. In addition to Night School, she is currently developing Limited Partners and The Temp, both in which she will executive produce and star. Haddish has also released her memoir, The Last Black Unicorn, which made The New York Times bestseller list. She recently became the first black female stand-up comedian to host Saturday Night Live.

About CinemaCon

CinemaCon will attract upwards of 5,000 motion picture professionals from all facets of the industry -- from exhibition and distribution, to the equipment and concession areas -- all on hand to celebrate the moviegoing experience and the cinema industry. From exclusive Hollywood product presentations highlighting a slate of upcoming films, to must-see premiere feature screenings, to the biggest stars, producers and directors, CinemaCon will help jumpstart the excitement and buzz that surrounds the summer season at the box office.

CinemaCon is delighted to have both the International Cinema Technology Association (ICTA) and National Association of Concessionaires (NAC) as its tradeshow partners. CinemaCon is also delighted to have as its official presenting sponsor, The Coca-Cola Company, one of the industry’s greatest and highly regarded and respected partners in the world of the movies. Additional information on CinemaCon, the Official Convention of NATO, can be found at www.cinemacon.com.

About NATO

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) is the largest exhibition trade organization in the world, representing more than 30,000 movie screens in all 50 states, and additional cinemas in 57 countries worldwide. NATO’s membership includes the largest cinema chains in the world and hundreds of independent theatre owners, too.

The Movie Report wants to attend all your film special events! Please send any and all invitations to this address. Thanks!

Press Junket Potluck: If Loving You Is Wrong... Tyler Perry & OWN don't wanna be right

Sex, secrets, scandals, schemes... and that's just in the first episode. And so goes Tyler Perry's newest series for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, If Loving You Is Wrong. While loosely inspired by Perry's feature film dramedy from this past spring, The Single Moms Club--even retaining one of its stars, Zulay Henao, in a rebooted rework of her same role--the prolific multimedia mogul's latest small screen offering is more in line with his breakout hit for the network, the saucy primetime soap The Haves and Have Nots, which will premiere its third season in January 2015. The social media watercooler conversation will only continue, if not intensify, with this new series, given just how wrong the loving gets in only the first few minutes of the new show's opening hour--and the shockwaves of repercussions across a wide entanglement of various couples can and will only grow as the drama progresses, especially with so many of the people in the same neighborhood.

Most of the actors who play the principal roles--Henao (Esperanza), Heather Hemmens (Marcie), Amanda Clayton (Alex), Edwina Findley Dickerson (Kelly), April Parker Jones (Natalie), Tiffany Haddish (Jackie), Octavio Pizano (Julius), Eltony Williams (Randal), Aiden Turner (Brad), Denzel Wells (Travis), Charles Malik Whitfield (Lushion), Matt Cook (Joey), and Dawan Owens (Quan)--screened the series' inaugural episode for the very first time alongside a select group of media at a special event at the OWN Los Angeles offices last Wednesday, September 3. Given the wide and wide-ranging canvas of characters, there is no better way to be introduced to them than by the portrayers themselves, which they do so in the highlight video below, along with giving a taste/tease of what to expect as the weeks progress (with no spoilers!)

And below is a further taste of all the drama that awaits when If Loving You Is Wrong begins its 20-episode first season tonight, Tuesday, September 9, on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network.

(Special thanks to OWN, 135th Street Agency, Dawan Owens, April Parker-Jones, and Eltony Williams)