People get their choice of heroes

The Avengers led the movie nominations for the annual People’s Choice Awards in a field packed with action films, while Maroon 5 and frontman Adam Levine won six nods in music and television categories.

Justin Bieber, Channing Tatum – People magazine’s latest ’’ sexiest man alive’’ – and actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone also received multiple nominations for the only Hollywood awards show covering film, music and television that is voted on entirely by the public.

The People’s Choice Awards ceremony, set for January 9, is the first in the busy Hollywood awards season, which culminates with the coveted Academy Awards on February 24.

Summer blockbuster The Avengers won eight nominations including favorite movie, favorite action movie, and multiple nods for its stars Robert Downey Jr, Anne Hathaway, Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth.

It will compete with superhero movies The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises, fantasy film Snow White and the Huntsman and futuristic thriller The Hunger Games for favorite movie. The last of the popular Twilight films – Breaking Dawn-Part 2 – released this week, did not fall within the eligibility period for the People’s Choice Awards.

But its avid Twi-hards picked up a nomination for favorite movie fan following, along with those of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Hunger Games.