Amazon made its second formal appearance at the upfronts in New York on Monday night, and once again, it pulled out all the stops.
Like their 2024 presentation, Amazon made a number of splashy announcements with major star power to rev up excitement in the normally sedated crowd of advertising executives at the storied Beacon Theater in Manhattan.
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World famous DJ Steve Aoki opened the show with over half an hour of blasting beats on behalf of Twitch, which was no doubt welcome by weary advertisers who had been making their way around the city to different network presentations since morning. What better than some good EDM to wake you up on a Monday evening, after all?
Not long after, Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista made their way onstage with Lizzo leading the way. Yes, you read that right. Lizzo sang her hit song “About Damn Time,” with Momoa and Bautista remaining onstage afterwards to hype their upcoming action Amazon MGM Studios movie “The Wrecking Crew.”
“Spoiler alert: we kick some ass,” Bautista said.
“Some of us kick more ass than others,” Momoa quipped.
The first non-celebrity onstage was Tanner Elton, VP of US Ad Sales for Amazon. Elton touted Amazon’s ad supported audience of over 300 million people. “These engagements are meaningful and represent incredible opportunities for brands,” he said.
“New Heights” hosts Travis and Jason Kelce were up next, first appearing in a video before walking out in person to a big round of applause. The brothers took a few playful jabs at each other, with Jason admitting they “over-index on the shit talking.”
On the scripted programming side, Amazon announced a Season 3 renewal for “Fallout,” a “Barbershop” TV series starring Jermaine Fowler, and offered a first-look at the highly anticipated superhero series “Spider-Noir” starring Nicolas Cage. In unscripted, Mr. Beast’s series “Beast Games” scored a two-season renewal at Prime Video.
By the way, that “Fallout” announcement? It was accompanied by a full chorus line of showgirls onstage dancing to the classic “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin. Series stars Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Aaron Moten introduced Amazon’s global of TV, Vernon Sanders, who revealed the renewal.
Prime Sports showed off their “Thursday Night Football” coverage, while also hyping their coverage of the NBA, WNBA, and NASCAR among other sports. That portion of the presentation was capped off by Blake Griffin facing off against Ryan Fitzpatrick in a Pop-A-Shot shootoff (Fitz won handily, FYI).
Other stars onstage included multiple cast members from the “Legally Blonde” prequel “Elle,” followed by Octavia Spencer, Elizabeth Banks, and Jamie Lee Curtis. All three of the latter women have shows in the works at Prime Video.
Michael B. Jordan himself then took the stage to unveil a new series set in the “Creed” film universe. Jordan is an executive producer on the project, which is set in the Delphi Gym and will follow young boxers who train there.
Amazon’s film slate was also a major topic of discussion, with “Heads of State” star John Cena hitting the stage with Courtenay Valenti, Amazon’s head of theatrical and streaming film. When pressed on who would win in a fight between him and his co-stars, Cena said simply, “Priyanka Chopra-Jonas.”
Not long after, action legend Arnold Schwarzenegger came out and cracked the crowd up with how his belief in “free speech” led to him getting tricked into speaking at upfronts. As Schwarzenegger went on, his “True Lies” co-star Curtis came out to escort him offstage. Schwarzenegger was in no mood to leave the stage, much to the crowd’s delight. The two then went completely off script, reminiscing about their time working together and earning huge applause.
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