Once upon a time, every Super Bowl commercial was a surprise. Companies would zealously guard their secret advertisements until the big moment when they would suddenly spring forth the material for a hundred million people to watch at the same time. Over the last half decade or so, the game has changed, however. Now a very sizeable percentage of companies decide to either full on release their Super Bowl spots ahead of time or at least release a teaser for the commercial.
I’m not an advertising executive. I don’t really know whether it’s the right call to create buzz ahead of time or angle for the surprise element, but as a movie editor, I can tell you we may well have covered more pre-Super Bowl pieces of movie footage this year than anytime before this. As the clips have come in, we’ve done our best to churn them back out as quickly as possible, but in all likilhood, you probably missed a few of the entries. So, we’ve decided to compile them together in one handy to watch article.
So, get your excited face on. Mentally come to grips with not seeing Guardians Of The Galaxy and prepare for a few smiles. These are the pieces of Super Bowl footage we’ve gotten so far…
British Villains For Jaguar
The British People are good at a lot of things. Playing calculated, white collar movie criminals are near the top of the list. Luxury car maker Jaguar noticed the trend; so, its marketing time decided to put together the above hilarious commercial highlighting the basic tone and badass-ness we’ve all come to expect from a British dude who is interested in taking over the world.
For the record, I’m in favor of anything that lets Tom Hiddleston, Mark Strong and Ben Kingsley work together. Maybe someday the three of them will join forces for a Three Musketeers reboot that would actually be worth watching.
Morpheus Sells Kias
With all due respect to Blake Griffin who is capable of jumping over cars to slam dunk, the NBA star doesn’t have quite the same intellectual appeal as Laurence Fishburne. Here, he reprises his role as The Matrix’s Morpheus and lets prospective buyers know they’ve been completely blinded by their preconceived ideas of luxury. It’s a clever idea and one that’s been making the rounds over the past few days since Kia unexpectedly decided to release it early.
Given the coolness of seeing Fishburne back in costume, it may have been a smarter decision or Kia to wait until the actual Super Bowl to surprise fans, but regardless, it’s a damn good commercial that’s just as entertaining as it is persuasive.
Terry Crews And The Muppets Sell Highlanders
Most huge actors have a big, splashy breakout moment when they suddenly turn into a really big deal, but Terry Crews has never really gotten that. Instead, he’s paid his dues, made the most of his chances and slowly turned into one of the most reliable choices in Hollywood to fill out a supporting role. Here, he plays second fiddle to The Muppets who do their best to highlight how incredible the Toyota Highlander apparently is, despite the fact that there is more than one.
I love advertisements that kill two birds with one stone. It’s in the Muppets best interest to remind people they have another movie coming up in the very near future. It’s in Toyota’s best interest to align themselves with one of the most beloved franchises in the world. Win-win.
Noah Teaser
On paper, Noah sounds like a slam dunk. It’s an Aronofsky movie based on one of the craziest, most over the top, most well-known Bible stories in existence, starring a beloved actor who has been nominated for a slew of Academy Awards. For whatever reason, however, much of the promotional materials have failed to win over fans, and even those who are interested in Noah weren’t won over by the first trailer.
Maybe this TV spot will reverse the trend. Maybe it won’t. Either way, it makes me want to go out and buy a back-up umbrella.
Draft Day Teaser
Draft Day is another film with a serious buzz problem. There’s not quite the loud negativity surrounding the project that Noah is dealing with from some corners, but the excitement level just isn’t there. The above commercial has generated just seventy-five thousand views since it first went onto YouTube yesterday, which is great by videos of your cat standards but pretty terrible by movie footage standards.
Still, Costner is experiencing a bit of a career resurgence, and he certainly hasn’t lost anything talentwise. Consequently, there’s a legitimate chance this could turn out to be way better than anyone expected. Here’s to hoping the Browns flip the script and actually make wise decisions in this film.
Captain America Teaser
Rather than giving away all the primary footage in a teaser ahead of the Super Bowl, Marvel decided to use the lead-up to Sunday’s game in order to promote the fact that Captain America: The Winter Soldier will be televising a commercial. Yay, I guess. Any Captain America footage is still better than no Captain America footage.
That being said, it would be nice to get a little bit more action. Hopefully, that’ll come in Spades on Sunday, but until then, all we can do is take the Marvel footage where we can get it.
Spider-Man Teaser
Now, this is what I’m talking about. I’m normally really harsh when it comes to Spider-Man. I still don’t get why we needed to reboot the franchise that quickly, but while I’m watching this teaser, there’s nothing I can feel but admiration at both how beautiful the footage looks and how the advertising executives have chosen to position the teaser. This cliffhanger makes me want to watch more. It makes me want to keep my eyes out on Sunday, and that has to be the goal of any company not going for a complete surprise reveal.
It would be incredible if Amazing Spider-Man used the Super Bowl to unleash some real footage of a villain. That would be a badass way to generate a ton of Twitter conversation. Fingers crossed.
3 Days To Kill Trailer
Kevin Costner is everywhere these days. From Jack Ryan to Man Of Steel, he’s involved with some of the biggest franchises in Hollywood, and his mark will be all over Super Bowl Sunday too. We already showed you the clip for Draft Day earlier in the article. Here’s one for the actor’s other flick, 3 Days To Kill, which uses a little common sense to make some anti-soccer jokes, which is perfect for the crowd it's geared toward.
This flick hits theaters on February 21st, which means it needs the publicity. Desperately. Did you even know about this movie until right now? For its sake, I hope some people actually take notice this weekend, or else the accountants are going to have a lot of long nights trying to make this spread sheet add up.
