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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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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. TAS
