The Super Bowl was once (and for once, we mean as recently as last year), the top destination for revealing new movie trailers. For $ 5 million or more, Hollywood studios got 30 seconds or more of America’s total and unrivaled attention during the biggest television event. The hope, of course, is eventually to translate those huge marketing dollars into substantial ticket sales.
Universal Pictures made good use of that time (and more) during Super Bowl LIV in Miami, launching all the charts – including a show! – to generate excitement around the filming of “F9”, the next sequence of “Fast and Furious” that is a tribute to muscular men, fast cars and the type of explosive stunts that defy the laws of physics. Still, in the following months, the pandemic hit and forced many films – “F9” included – to postpone release dates. “F9”, although currently scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, may face at least one more delay before it finally hits theaters.
Therefore, it is not entirely unexpected that viewers will not see the degree of fanfare that received “F9” in any teaser trailer that passes during this year’s big game. In fact, many traditional studios are entirely outside the Super Bowl. With the theatrical landscape still evolving, Hollywood is not willing to spend too much to create buzz for a film that may not see the light of day anytime soon.
Consider the potential box office hits that got prime time placement in last year’s showdown: Paramount’s “A Quiet Place Part II”, “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Top Gun: Maverick”; James Bond’s entry from MGM, “No Time to Die”; and Disney’s “Black Widow” and “Mulan”. Go forward a year later and only two of these films have been released. The rest has been postponed numerous times by their respective studios.
It is not just the Super Bowl that can yield movie trailers. Studios have been reducing TV ads for some time. The number of 30-second TV ads that studios ran on major networks between December 28 and January 3 fell 82% over the same period last year, according to Kantar, an advertising spending monitoring company . This trend may continue until cinemas reopen and people feel comfortable returning to the cinema.
But fear not, commercial Super Bowl enthusiasts. CBS, the network that hosts the big game, has already run out of ad spaces. Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Tide and Hellman’s mayonnaise will keep commercial breaks full.
And football’s biggest night will not be entirely devoid of Hollywood’s hottest movies and TV titles – there are few ways to reliably attract so many eyes. Last year’s clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers resulted in one of the lowest-rated games in modern history and still attracted 100 million viewers.
Amazon Prime Video is expected to have a presence, probably with a spot for Eddie Murphy’s “Coming 2 America”. And Paramount Plus will likely try to attract some attention before the launch of ViacomCBS’s proprietary streaming service next month. HBO Max is also expected to release some of the films that will arrive on the platform in 2021.
Streaming services have increased advertising in the Super Bowl in recent years, which is most memorable with Netflix’s post-game surprise that “The Cloverfield Paradox” was falling on the streamer immediately after time ran out. But don’t expect that kind of shock from Netflix after the Chiefs take on the Buccaneers. Peacock, NBCU’s ad-supported streaming service, also has nothing in progress.
Among the traditional studios, Sony, Warner Bros. and Paramount are not releasing any trailers. However, plans can always change before Sunday. Some studios are known to buy ad spots at the end of the sales process, which networks naturally try to get to make more money. Universal and Disney, both active Super Bowl advertisers, booked 30-second ads, but were shy to keep promotional efforts a surprise. Director M. Night Shyamalan may have suggested an announcement by Universal on Tuesday, posting a five-second clip on Twitter for his upcoming “Old” thriller. The video has the caption “5…”, which is the same number of days until the Super Bowl.
It is also possible that Hollywood could mitigate spending by joining corporate partners. Last year, Warners worked with Proctor & Gamble to get Gal Gadot to appear as Diana Prince in a Tide commercial that also served as a promotion for “Wonder Woman 1984”. And “Bill and Ted Face the Music” achieved its 30 seconds of fame in a Walmart commercial, although it did not feature any film sequences.
In another era, that did not involve a violent pandemic, the Super Bowl would be the perfect opportunity for Disney to feature Scarlett Johansson’s Marvel hero for “Black Widow” (scheduled for May 7) or for Universal to reintroduce viewers to Dom and the “F9” class (scheduled for May 28). But there is a good chance that these titles will change the launch plans in the coming weeks. “No Time to Die,” Daniel Craig’s fifth and final release as James Bond, has already been postponed to October and “A Quiet Place Part II” has been relegated to September. Unless the situation around the coronavirus improves dramatically in the near future, delays may continue to occur.
So, what does this mean for the big game? More time in the spotlight for time-tested legends like Doritos and M & Ms.
Brian Steinberg contributed to this report.