Entertainment

MTV Movie Awards big Hollywood studio plug-fest

April 14, 2014 | 9:30pm

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” Last year, the MTV Movie Awards moved up its broadcast date from June to April to incorporate a summer movie plug-fest. Sunday night's show cemented that change, as clips from anticipated blockbusters debuted at the madcap ceremony.

In its 22nd year, the MTV Movie Awards show has become an important event for Hollywood studios. And oh yes, there were some awards, too.

At last year's show, which saw an average of 3.8 million viewers, up from 3.2 million for the previous year's telecast, included new footage from "Iron Man 3" and the world premiere of "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" trailer, which was introduced by one of the films' stars, Liam Hemsworth.

Sure, an abundance of golden popcorn-shaped prizes were again presented for fun fair, like the award for best shirtless performance, which Zac Efron accepted, well, shirtless. But it's the summer movie teasers â€” and the stars attached to them â€” that really make the show.

Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone (who will also appear in Woody Allen's "Magic in the Moonlight," July 25) and Jamie Foxx, star in the seventh installment of Sony's "Spider-Man" franchise, which kicks off the summer movie season on May 2. The trio introduced a clip of the film showing Spider-Man (Garfield) and the sparkling blue villain Electro (Foxx) battling in New York's Times Square.

Also expected to dominate at the box office, Fox's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" was touted with an intro by one of its new stars, Ellen Page, who will take on the role of Shadowcat. The upcoming film, out May 23, sees the X-Men joining forces with their younger selves and introduces a number of new mutants â€” Blink, Sunspot, Warpath and Bishop.

There to present the award for best fight was Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the star of Warner Bros.' "Godzilla," which opens May 16. A short clip of the film, showing the monster preparing to wreak havoc, aired before Taylor-Johnson appeared on stage.

Seth Rogen, Dave Franco and Efron, who lead Universal Pictures' comedy "Neighbors," out May 9, also presented the award for best kiss together.

No clip was shown for Disney-Marvel's opted against showing a clip of "Guardians of the Galaxy," a bit of a superhero spoof set in space, this yea. But Chris Pratt, the star of the film, out August 1, checked in at the show as well with a long speech encouraging viewers to vote for their favorite nominees online.

First-look footage from Fox's "The Fault in Our Stars," starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, showed the beginnings of the onscreen couple's romance in the heartfelt comedy.

Mark Wahlberg, who received the generation award at the show, touted his upcoming "Transformers: Age of Extinction," saying the Paramount Pictures' flick would be the biggest movie of 2014. Some of the crew of the hit HBO show "Entourage" presented Wahlberg with his award and the presence of Adrian Grenier, Jerry Ferrara and Kevin Dillon reminded us that the "Entourage" movie is being readied for 2015.

Starring in two possible summer hits, Channing Tatum will appear in both the buddy cop comedy "22 Jump Street," out June 13, with Jonah Hill (who picked up the best comedic performance award for "The Wolf of Wall Street"), and sci-fi fantasy "Jupiter Ascending," out July 18, with Mila Kunis (who scored the title of best villain for "Oz the Great and Powerful").

Both Kunis, looking very pregnant in a short, loose black dress, and Hill presented Tatum with his Trailblazer Award.

And not to be missed was Josh Hutcherson's mention of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died on Feb. 2 from a combination of heroin, cocaine and other drugs.

Hoffman appeared in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," which earned the evening's top prize of movie of the year.

"If Philip were here he would think this was really cool," said Hutcherson, one of the stars of "Hunger Games" and the best male performance recipient.

"To have him in our movie was one of the coolest things," Hutcherson said. "We think about him every day on set. This definitely goes out to him as well."

"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay â€” Part 1" will release later this year.

No MTV awards show would be complete without a few music numbers. Ellie Goulding sang "Beating Heart," while Zedd took the stage for "Find You." Both tracks appear on the "Divergent" soundtrack.

Host Conan O'Brien kicked off the ceremony, which aired live from the Nokia Theatre, with a challenge to gain 50 celebrity cameos for his opening segment. And of course he came through with many stars like Paul Rudd and Adam Sandler, who have films expected in the coming months.

The MTV awards had some stiff competition from other networks on Sunday night, including the latest installment of HBO's popular "Game of Thrones" and the final season premiere of AMC's "Mad Men."