While you might not have heard of CCXP in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that doesn’t mean it’s not one of the biggest conventions on the planet. Over the past few years, Brazil’s Comic-Con, started by our friends at Omelete, has quickly become the go-to destination for the movie studios and streaming services as the one stop shop to reach the geek audience in Latin America. Last year, the con had 240,000 attendees and this year it’s even bigger. Because of the popularity of the convention, all the movie studios are down here promoting their upcoming slates. While San Diego used to be the place where movie studios pushed their product, CCXP definitely now has a bigger movie studio presence.

The first studio to present a panel this year was Paramount Pictures. During the hourlong presentation, Paramount focused on three of their upcoming films: Rocketman, Pet Sematary and Bumblebee, before ending the panel with the world premiere of footage from Sonic, a very short teaser for Top Gun: Maverick, and tons of logos for upcoming films in production and development like Coming to America 2, World War Z 2, Dora the Explorer, A Quiet Place 2, Micronauts, and more.

I was in attendance for the panel, and below I’ve offered a rundown of what I saw.
Rocketman

The panel opened with a video from Rocketman producer Matthew Vaughn explaining how the project came together and how they cast Taron Egerton as Elton John. It ends up that on the set of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Elton John pitched Vaughn on a script he had using his songs. Vaughn read it and loved it. Around the same time, he saw Egerton singing some of John’s songs (if you didn’t know from the movie Sing, Egerton has a fantastic voice) and a few days later had him come into a recording studio to see what he could do without any sort of rehearsal. In the CCXP video, Vaughn explained that Egerton blew everyone away in the studio without having to use any sort of trickery to make his voice sound great. And to prove it, he showed the raw footage he shot without adding any sort of editing enhancements.

In the unedited footage, we saw Egerton wearing a t-shirt and headphones belting out “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and he sounded amazing. I could see immediately why Vaughn would be impressed and want him to star in the film.

From there we saw the already released teaser. Based on everything I’ve heard about the movie and this amazing raw footage, I am extremely confident director Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman is going to be something special and people will be raving about Taron Egerton as Elton John. The film hits theaters on May 31, 2019.
Pet Sematary

The next film presented was director Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura was in attendance and talked about why this was a great time to remake the classic Stephen King story and spoke to the increasing popularity of the horror genre. After talking about putting together the cast of Jason Clarke, John Lithgow, Amy Seimetz, and a few others, they showed the previously released trailer. Based on what he said and the very creepy footage, I think the film has a lot of potential. Pet Sematary hits theaters on April 5, 2019.



Bumblebee

The big push during the panel was Bumblebee. Not only did they spend a ton of time talking about the movie—including having some of the Brazilian voice cast onstage—they world premiered some new footage from the beginning of the film, and I have to say, it looked great.

If you’re trying to stay spoiler free, skip the next four paragraphs.

From what I can tell based on the footage, the film opens with Bumblebee somehow on Earth being chased down by a Decepticon jet (I’m not sure if it is Starscream or someone else). It’s clear Bumblebee is completely outmatched in every way and the Decepticon easily defeats him, throwing him off of the top of a mountain. As he hits the ground he is very damaged from the impact. As he crawls towards the water near where he landed, we see some internal warnings in his system saying “memory core shutdown” as he notices a Volkswagen beetle parked with a few other cars across the water. His system then shuts down and cut to black.

In the next scene, we meet Hailee Steinfeld’s character as she is looking around a car lot for a car. It’s her eighteenth birthday. As she is looking around, she comes across a yellow beetle and falls in love with it. After offering to work at the shop to acquire the car and telling the owner it’s her birthday, he gives it to her and she drives away with another employee asking the owner if the car was safe enough to drive. They think it wasn’t.

When she gets home, she starts to examine the car. At some point, Bumblebee’s arm falls out from below the base of the car and she crawls underneath to see more. As she uses a flashlight to examine the undercarriage, her flashlight comes across his face and Bumblebee’s eyes light up. As he transforms, it’s clear he is incredibly frightened, even more so than Steinfeld’s character Charlie. As she tries to get a handle on the situation, she starts asking Bumblebee questions and it’s clear the impact from the fall after losing to the Decepticon has damaged his memory, because he doesn’t know his name and has no voice. From there we saw a number of scenes of Steinfeld’s character and Bumblebee getting to know one another, and they played extremely well and had a lot of heart.

In addition, some of the other footage we saw featured two other Decepticon’s meeting John Cena’s character (Agent Burns) and it plays like this is the first time humans have met any Transformers, so when they say they are chasing a criminal, the humans believe them. From there we saw a montage of footage featuring all the characters, a lot of action, and some very cool close up shots on the Transformers transforming. I really dug the footage and it looked a lot different in feel and tone than what Michael Bay did when he helmed the previous films.

End spoilers

After the footage, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura talked about why they wanted to focus on the Generation 1 Transformers and setting the movie in 1987. It ends up the fans’ voices were heard because one of the big things all the fans kept saying was that they wanted to see Generation 1. He went on to say that it’s a more intimate story, focusing on less characters than the previous Transformers movies, and that it will be a completely different experience. In addition, he said the film will show a different type of transforming and we will see more detail on the individual pieces. Finally, he talked about the relationship between Bumblebee and Steinfeld’s character, saying they each need one another to move forward and their relationship is the most important part of the movie. Both characters will learn from each other and benefit from their unexpected meeting.

While I’ll admit the last few Transformers movies haven’t lived up to the quality of the first film, it’s very clear from the footage that Bumblebee is a completely different movie and director Travis Knight might have delivered something fun and cool with the spinoff. I really dug the footage and am a lot more excited to see this movie now than I was earlier today. Bumblebee hits theaters on December 21st.


Top Gun: Maverick, Sonic, and More

As the panel ended, the lights went back down and we were treated to a sizzle reel of upcoming Paramount movies, which featured the world premiere of some footage and logos from the many films they have in development.

The first thing they showed was a short teaser for director Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick. The short teaser showed a few quick shots of jets on an aircraft carrier, in flight, and Tom Cruise in a jet. The quick teaser ended with Cruise saying the iconic line in a voiceover from the first Top Gun: “I feel the need…the need for speed.” After that we saw the logo.

One of the next things we saw the world premiere of some very brief footage from director Jeff Fowler’s Sonic the Hedgehog movie. While the footage was very short, it showed Sonic on a highway and then quickly running off screen. It’s clear the footage was nothing more than reminding people who Sonic is and that he has a movie coming soon.

The footage ended with a title card saying Sonic, so that could be the film’s official title.

After getting to see some footage, Paramount showed a bunch of title cards for their upcoming movies including A Quiet Place 2, Coming to America 2, Micronauts, World War Z 2, The Rhythm Section, Dora the Explorer, Gemini Man, Are You Afraid of the Dark, G.I. Joe, Dungeons & Dragons, and more.


Final Thoughts

Based on the audience reaction and how I feel about the footage, the Paramount Pictures panel was a success. I left wanting to see Rocketman and Bumblebee as soon as I can and loved that they teased us with all the stuff they have in development and coming soon.

CCXP is only getting started and this is the first of many panels I’ll be recapping. Please keep checking back on Collider for more updates from Brazil.