I love basketball and hockey, but I’m not much of a football fan. Instead I’m one of those sports cretins who watches the Superbowl for the commercials. Not just the commercials, but for the movie trailers too. Usually the Superbowl is a hotbed of new movie trailer debuts from Hollywood. In the past we’ve seen new ads for big movies like Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean and last year Cars showing up there, but no more. This year Hollywood is skipping America’s biggest day of television watching.
Variety says that with less than a week to go, only two movies trailers are confirmed to run during the big game. Neither of those two movies is a blockbuster or major summer release. Last year eight trailers for major movies ran in between Budweiser ads, this year we’re getting trailers for Wild Hogs and the Terrence Howard inner-city swimming movie Pride. That’s it.
To blame may be the recent popularity of other television programming. Universal, Sony, and Warner Brothers have reportedly decided to skip the Superbowl in favor of spending their advertising money on high profile weekly shows like ‘Heroes’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. Paramount is spending its cash on an hour of Norbit advertising during the pre-game, where the price tags are cheaper and Sony is doing the same with Ghost Rider. So now we all know not to watch the pre-game. I think I’d shrivel up and die if I had to sit through an hour of Norbit commercials, unless I’m drunk off my ass, and to be drunk for the pre-game I’ll have to start in very early indeed. Which means that by game time I’ll be slumped over asleep in a bowl of 7-layer dip.
Time isn’t up yet, and some studios are still supposed to be in talks with the CBS sales department, but right now it looks like the Superbowl will be a pretty boring place for movie fans. Honestly it may be bad news around for all Superbowl commercial fans. Various sources are reporting an overall pullback in advertising from major corporations. Unless Budweiser brings back the frogs, we may actually have to watch the game for a change and save the commercials for restroom breaks.
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