With this year’s domestic box office expected to rise to $9 billion, of course the major Hollywood studios are taking Super Bowl LVII ad spots seriously.
The big game, which last year attracted 112 million viewers, remains an enormous bullhorn when it comes to drawing attention to your tentpole movies — and this year, starting with Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, has a lot of them. So if you’re a studio looking to draw attention and separate your movie from the conveyor belt of events films that are occurring every weekend from late February through September, well then best to pony up a record $7 million for a 30-second spot on the February 12 Fox telecast of the Kansas City Chiefs-Philadelphia Eagles showdown.
In recent years –before and after the pandemic– Super Bowl trailers have become events in of themselves. Studios often debut a portion of them in advance of the game before dropping something longer by Sunday. The spoils occur on social media on the Monday following the game as many catch up with trailers that aired; last year, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was the most watched spot on social in the 24 hours following the L.A. Rams’ victory over the Bengals with 93M views, according to RelishMix — that movie ultimately posted the biggest opening at the box office last year in the U.S. and Canada with $187.4M, and the third highest of the year at $411M behind Top Gun: Maverick ($718.3M) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($436.4M) in calendar-year grosses.
A big deal this year: Warner Bros, which has typically sat on the sidelines in previous Super Bowls, is expected to have a spot for the June 16 release of DC’s The Flash, which the comic book studio’s co-boss James Gunn has declared “probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.” The pic starring Ezra Miller is expected to re-set the DC Universe.
Universal always brings it to Super Bowl for the Fast & Furious franchise. In 2020, when no one was expecting a pandemic at game time, the studio threw a Miami concert trailer drop for the F9 trailer debut. This year, on February 9, it’s throwing a Fast X party on the L.A. Live Event Deck with star Vin Diesel and cast for the world premiere of the tenthquel’s trailer. Fast X opens May 19.
While Uni is launching their big campaign for Fast X on Super Bowl Sunday, it is already two spots into the campaign for the Easter weekend April 7 release of Illumination’s Super Mario Bros Movie. As such, don’t expect the plumbers.
We do hear thought that on the Universal front there will be a 15-second pre-game spot for the Elizabeth Banks-directed thriller Cocaine Bear. That movie opens February 24.
Disney is always part of the pigskin show and expect no less this year as it’s poised to tout spots for Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (February 17), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5), The Little Mermaid (May 26), Pixar’s Elemental (June 16) and possibly Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30) and Marvel Studios’ The Marvels (July 28). No spots for Disney+’s Secret Invasion are expected.
Already out there in the ether is the Heineken cross-branded Quantumania spot below, already at 26 million views on YouTube:
Paramount, too, has a rich history with the Super Bowl. This year we hear there will be spots for Scream VI (March 10), Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (March 31) and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (June 9). Not expected: a trailer for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (July 14). Paramount had one for Mission: Impossible Fallout back during Super Bowl 2018.
Similar to the above studios, Amazon/MGM and Lionsgate wouldn’t comment on their Super Bowl plans. However, it wouldn’t be shocking if either had a presence; Amazon had a spot for its Lord of the Rings series last year and MGM had one for No Time to Die in 2020. Hence, it wouldn’t be a surprise if United Artists Releasing’s Creed III (March 3) shows up, or if Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 (March 24) makes a splash. The latter franchise ran a spot for John Wick: Chapter 2 during Super Bowl 2017.
Sony, similar to last year, won’t be in the mix for the Super Bowl. The last time it dropped a spot during the Big Game was in 2017 with the Ryan Reynolds-Jake Gyllenhaal sci-fi movie Life.