MTV Movie & TV Awards ditches live event due to strike

A host-less, pretaped and muted MTV Movie & TV Awards kicked off Sunday, the first big awards show to air during the screenwriters’ strike with a commercial-heavy broadcast featuring lots of past recycled live clips.

Tom Cruise[ took home the best performance in a movie for “Top Gun: Maverick,” beating Austin Butler ("Elvis"), Florence Pugh ("Don't Worry Darling"), Michael B. Jordan ("Creed III") and KeKe Palmer ("Nope"). In a pretaped response, Cruise was seen piloting a jet and thanking the fans, while also plugging his next “Mission: Impossible” film.

“The Kardashians” won best docu-reality show, the best breakthrough performance went to Joseph Quinn of “Stranger Things,” and Pedro Pascal won best hero for “The Last Of Us.” HBO’s “Last of Us” also took home best duo trophies for Pascal and co-star Bella Ramsey, and best TV show.

Host Drew Barrymore had dropped out in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, and the show’s red carpet was rolled up. Faced with a picket from the guild, MTV scrapped the live event entirely.

While Barrymore wasn’t there, she had left plenty of sponsored bits, one with Cheetos popcorn and another pretending to play younger sister Skipper in the upcoming movie “Barbie.” She was also in commercials for Pluto TV.

Jennifer Coolidge received the Comedic Genius Award on tape and gave a shoutout to striking writers, saying almost all great comedy starts with great writers. “I stand here before you tonight side by side with my sisters and brothers from the WGA,” she said.

Coolidge later won for most frightened performance for her role in the second season of “The White Lotus.”

MTV filled the show with old clips, like an all-star 2001 performance of “Lady Marmalade,” Lizzo belting out her hit “Juice” in 2019, and other genius award speeches from previous winners like Melissa McCarthy, Kevin Hart and Jack Black.

The best movie popcorn trophy went to “Scream VI,” which beat out “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Elvis,” “Nope,” “Smile” and “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Jenna Ortega took home the best performance in a TV show for “Wednesday,” beating out Aubrey Plaza for “The White Lotus,” Christina Ricci in “Yellowjackets,” Riley Keough for “Daisy Jones & The Six,” Sadie Sink in “Stranger Things” and Selena Gomez for “Only Murders in the Building.”

Best competition series went to “RuPauls Drag Race.”

Barrymore took home the best host award.