document: Word of Mouth : What will hit , miss and surprise in theaters this summer Clothing designers have fashion week in New York . Car manufacturers , the auto shows in Detroit . When Hollywood wants to tout its upcoming wares , it heads to Las Vegas . CinemaCon , as the just-concluded annual Nevada gathering of movie theater owners now calls itself , is part beauty pageant -- a smattering of stars fly in to promote their films to the thousands of exhibitors on hand -- and part trade show , with vendors such as American Licorice showing off their yummy new Natural Vines -LRB- in both red and black licorice -RRB- and Icee unveiling its not-too-sweet strawberry lemonade flavor . It 's altogether fitting that most of the convention 's film presentations have been held just a few yards from the sports book at Caesars Palace , where bettors lay wagers on who will win far-off events such as the World Series , the Stanley Cup Finals and the NBA championship . Even though many of the movies being hawked at CinemaCon do n't open for months , exhibitors already are making bets on which movies they think will -LRB- and will not -RRB- be winners at the box office . In years past , almost all of the major studios staged elaborate luncheons and dinners to plug their slates . This year , Disney , Warner Bros. , DreamWorks Animation , Paramount , Marvel Studios , Lionsgate and DreamWorks Studios presented an array of trailers , clips and even several films in full , with Sony showing the Kevin James romantic comedy '' `` Zookeeper '' '' and Lionsgate screening its mixed martial arts movie '' `` Warrior . '' '' Much of the selling was aimed at summer bookings . From May through September , the major studios and big independents will introduce some three dozen movies in wide release , many of which open on the same weekends . Exhibitors seemed to think there were three movies that will clearly dominate the schools-out season : Warner Bros. '' '' '' `` Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2 , '' '' Paramount and Hasbro 's '' `` Transformers : Dark of the Moon '' '' and Disney 's '' `` Pirates of the Caribbean : On Stranger Tides . '' '' The real CinemaCon test was in making the second tier of movies stand out from their brethren . In many ways , the film clips were designed to draw distinctions -- you may think our movie is this , but it 's really this . Pixar and Disney 's '' `` Cars 2 '' '' is n't an animated movie but a spy thriller . Paramount and Marvel Studios '' '' '' `` Thor '' '' may be about a Norse god comic-book figure , yet it 's actually funny . DreamWorks Animation 's '' `` Puss in Boots '' '' is more than a '' `` Shrek '' '' spin-off : It 's a Sergio Leone western that happens to star a talking cat . And DreamWorks Studio 's '' `` Real Steel '' '' might look like a movie about fighting robots , but do n't underestimate the father-son love story . Who succeeded the best ? J.J. Abrams showed about 20 minutes of '' `` Super 8 , '' '' a period drama about young kids who stumble into an alien invasion -LRB- picture '' `` Stand By Me '' '' crossed with '' `` Cloverfield '' '' -RRB- , that sparked a lot of exhibitor interest . DreamWorks Studios screened footage from '' `` The Help '' '' that it is confident will expand the film 's audience far beyond the millions of readers of the bestselling novel . And even National Geographic Films got into the act , bringing its inspirational drama '' `` The First Grader '' '' to Las Vegas to show theater owners that the film is not just a festival favorite but a crowd-pleaser as well . But the best judge of what the movie business is excited about comes from the 6,000 convention guests themselves . The people on the Las Vegas ground this week -- theater owners , distributors , filmmakers , studio executives and representatives from affiliated industries -- are paid to know what audiences want . We asked a variety of CinemaCon guests to pick the summer 's top-grossing film , its biggest bust and most popular sleeper . To encourage candor , they were promised anonymity -- and told they could n't vote on their own movies . In many cases , they were basing their guesses on little more than their reaction to trailers , posters and plot summaries . Here 's what they had to say : Filmmaker Bomb : '' `` Rise of the Apes '' '' Sleeper : '' `` Zookeeper '' '' Hit : '' `` Pirates of the Caribbean '' '' Bomb : '' `` Conan the Barbarian '' ''
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abstractive_keyphrases: dreamworks animation's puss series the movie warrior disney's cars