Every year the Super Bowl offers an unspoken competition to brands: who will make the best Super Bowl commercial? Many brands try to accomplish this by spending most of their budget on big names, which can result in some of the best and strangest collaborations between celebrities ever. The 2025 championship matchup between the Eagles and Chiefs saw the return of Ben Affleck’s Dunkings, joined this time by Casey Affleck, Bill Belechik, and Jeremy Strong. Meanwhile Channing Tatum brought in Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham Football Club, and rom-com fans saw the return of When Harry Met Sally met… Sydney Sweeney?
However, they all pale in comparison to the strongest team up in Super Bowl ad history: Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Pink. It’s a Pepsi ad from 2004 that featured three of the biggest female music artists of the year singing Queen’s iconic “We Will Rock You”. It almost immediately became a cult classic, and it sees a resurgence whenever the Super Bowl comes around. It’s arguably Pepsi’s most memorable Super Bowl ads of all time–only it never actually aired during the Super Bowl.
This might be one of the most widespread mandala effects in the U.S. but it’s true. Despite spending a fortune on it, Yahoo Entertainment reported the ad was yanked by Pepsi executives saying it wouldn’t perform well with U.S. audiences.
What a crazy statement to make given its premise and the lengths they went to shoot the ad. The cast and crew were all flown out to Rome to film a Gladiator style video, inspired by Ridley Scott’s 2000 Oscar winning film featuring Russell Crowe. In the video, the women find themselves dressed head to toe in gladiator gear, forced to fight per the command of Emperor Enrique Iglesias.
Instead, they band together in a display of female solidarity and sing as the crowd stomps and claps, shaking the stadium so hard Iglesias and his cooler of Pepsi fall to the floor. The Latin music artist is subsequently fed to the lions as Beyonce, Pink, and Britney Spears celebrate by cracking open a cold Pepsi.
Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor even arranged a new version of their hit anthem for the pop stars to sing, and appeared in the Colosseum crowd themselves. Not airing this marketing masterpiece was the biggest fumble of Super Bowl XXXVIII, and it didn’t even happen during the game.
It’s clearly a decision that has haunted Pepsi ever since, and for the NFL’s 2024 Kickoff, they decided to try and recreate the magic a decade after the original. With Ridley Scott set to release Gladiator II later that fall, Pepsi also returned to the Colosseum, this time joined by Megan Thee Stallion, who ironically performed her hit song “Queen”. Another homage to the original commercial? I think yes.
In the video, the Grammy award-winning rapper watches as NFL stars Travis Kelce, Josh Allen, Derrick Henry, and Justin Jefferson defeat a pack of Tigers. It even featured a number of pop culture references including the viral trend “thinking about the Roman Empire,” and the riff from “We Will Rock You.” Unfortunately, like its cinematic counterpart, the sequel fell a little short compared to the original, but both Gladiator II and the 2024 commercial were still appreciated by fans.
Pepsi didn’t air a commercial during the most watched event on the 2025 TV schedule, nor did they release one last year. Instead, they announced the revival of their 1975 cross-country Pepsi Challenge. Having also ceded the Super Bowl Halftime Show to Apple in 2023, this classic soda brand’s presence has been lacking after 2 decades of iconic appearances during the biggest day of the year for network TV.
So here’s my proposal Pepsi: to reclaim your Super Bowl fame and the strange history behind this “Gladiator” commercial, you need to once again assemble Britney Spears, Pink, and Beyonce for next year’s commercial, inspired by whatever the biggest movie releases on the 2025 movie schedule. It will instantly become another iconic pop culture moment, but don’t forget to actually air it this time!
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