Josh Hutcherson poses with his best male performance award and movie of the year award for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” in the press room at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday, April 13, 2014, at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. AP
LOS ANGELES — “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” earned the prize for best film at Sunday night’s MTV Movie Awards, besting even top Oscar winner “12 Years a Slave.”
“Hunger Games” stars also took home some of the night’s biggest awards. Jennifer Lawrence won best female performance and Josh Hutcherson was voted best male performer.
Zany categories were also in abundance. Zac Efron earned best shirtless performance, while properly accepting his award, well, shirtless.
Plenty of golden popcorn-shaped prizes were handed out at the 22nd annual MTV Movie Awards, but it was the summer movie teasers — and the stars attached to them — that really had Hollywood excited.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx, stars of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” coming May 2, introduced a brief clip of the film showing Spider-Man (Garfield) and the sparkling blue villain Electro (Foxx) battling in New York’s Times Square.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the star of “Godzilla,” opening May 16, presented Orlando Bloom with the award for best fight for his and Evangeline Lilly’s tussle with the Orcs in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”
Ellen Page, one of the stars of the upcoming “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” introduced a clip from the film that sees the X-Men joining forces with their younger selves.
In the tease, some X-Men attempt to battle ruthless metal monsters using their special abilities. It’s the first appearance for some of the mutants — Blink, Sunspot, Warpath and Bishop.
The MTV Movie Awards have become the ideal platform for the Hollywood studios to promote their summer movies and this year was no exception.
First-look footage from “The Fault in Our Stars,” starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, showed the beginnings of the onscreen couple’s romance in the heartfelt comedy.
Jared Leto presented Mila Kunis with the award for best villain for “Oz the Great and Powerful.” ”You just made my 12-year-old self dream come true,” said Kunis while holding her golden popcorn prize. “And I just realized I’m the only woman nominated and I won.”
Receiving this year’s trailblazer award was Channing Tatum. The first male to gain the honor after Stone and Emma Watson, Tatum accepted the award from his “Jupiter Ascending” co-star Kunis and his “22 Jump Street” co-star Jonah Hill. Tatum admitted he thought he was being punked when he found out he would get the award.
On-hand to objectify the best male performance nominees were Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz, Nicki Minaj and Kate Upton. “Matthew McConaugh-heyyy,” said Minaj. “I have a pair of bongos you can play.” But it was Josh Hutcherson who earned the win.
Jordana Brewster introduced the special tribute to Paul Walker, who died in a car crash last November. “I witnessed the generosity of his heart every day I was with him,” she said. “He wanted to make a difference in this world. His charm, wit, spirit and his beautiful smile will live on.” Clips from a number of his films and a glimpse of footage of the actor accepting the MTV movie award for breakthrough male performance in 2002 were shown.
“I’m always going to be here for you even when you tell me to go,” Vin Diesel said in a video clip. “That’s who Paul Walker was.”
Mark Wahlberg collected the generation award. “I know what this really means,” said Wahlberg, adding that this is the award that signifies “You’re done.”
“Many people have gotten this award before. Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston…and you know what they all have in common? They’re all old. This is the too old to come back award,” said Wahlberg. “But it was as great run! I’m a lucky guy to have gone from being incarcerated to having a one-hit rap career to having an underwear modeling career to… I’m about to cry in a minute.”
Host Conan O’Brien kicked off the ceremony with a challenge to gain 50 celebrity cameos for his opening segment, a shtick with Will Arnett that merged two categories — best fight and best kiss — and a musical number about hating musical numbers in big awards shows.
Walking out to a track by rapper Rick Ross, O’Brien joked that he was almost injured by the show’s flashing pyrotechnics. “Fire, explosions and rap music: all things you associate with Conan O’Brien,” he deadpanned.
Earlier in the evening, Amanda Seyfried had trouble reading the teleprompter, blaming it on not wearing her contacts. “So far this is going about as well as the Oscars,” said her co-presenter Seth MacFarlane — referencing his 2013 Academy Award hosting gig — before the pair presented Hill with his award for best comedic performance for “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Hill’s initial thanks went to all of his friends with whom he used to watch the show back home before making it to the ceremony himself.
In the preshow awards, the prize for best cameo performance went to Rihanna for her appearance in the comedy “This is the End.” Later, Rihanna took to the stage with Eminem to perform their hit “The Monster.” Performing tacks from the soundtrack of “Divergent,” Ellie Goulding sang “Beating Heart,” while Zedd took the stage for “Find You.”
Best kiss went to Emma Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Will Poulter.
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.”