Super Bowl: Hollywood Studios & Some Streamers Returning With Trailers, But Is There Anything We Haven’t Seen Yet?

A majority of Hollywood studios withheld their theatrical movie trailers from last year’s Super Bowl as cinemas in Los Angeles and New York City remained closed because of the pandemic.

While the good news is that they’re back this year, we’re not hearing about any massive, head-turning stunts.

In previous Super Bowls, such eyebrow-raisers included Netflix announcing the debut of Paramount’s The Cloverfield Paradox immediately after the 2018 game. That same year, Dwayne Johnson made a lot of noise on The Tonight Show‘s post-game episode about his then summer movie Skyscraper. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, Universal pulled out all the stops for the F9 trailer debut with a Miami concert featuring performances from artists on the pic’s soundtrack. There was also that time when Netflix dropped the trailer for Stranger Things season 2 in 2017 which got a big bang.

Such fireworks remain to be seen this year, but should they occur it would truly be a well-kept surprise — secrets are hard to keep around Super Bowl time.

However, it seems that the pandemic funk, which has impaired the domestic box office rebound, has given some studios pause when it comes to promoting their slates before an audience that can clear 90 million viewers.

Then again, NBC is charging a reported record $6.5 million million for 30-second spots this year, up 18% from last year’s $5.5M, and depending on your marketing budget that’s either a great grab for eyeballs or an unnecessarily lavish means of blowing a film’s P&A campaign, which often average between $30M-$40M stateside. Sure, studios aren’t shy about promoting their movies a year or months in advance, but in this Covid era, some find it’s better to simply spend marketing dollars a week before a movie opens.

Even though last year’s Super Bowl LV on CBS had a multi-decade viewership low of 91.6 million, one would think we’re bound to see an improvement in audience this year following the ratings boost seen in the AFC and NFC championship games (they combined for 49 million viewers, +13% over 2021). It indicates that this year’s upcoming face-off between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium is money well spent, a time when you capture a huge audience all at once, and generate buzz out of the game for days afterwards.

Studios and streamers provided no comments about their plans for the game, however, below is what you can expect to see from Hollywood on Sunday, February 13 during any part of the day — meaning pre-game, during the game, and post-game;

Universal has a long history of capitalizing on the Super Bowl, especially when NBC is airing it in a year like this. So it’s likely we’ll see a spot for Jurassic World: Dominion (release date: June 10), a franchise that has made appearances in previous big games, as well Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 1). That prequel actually made an appearance at the Big Game 2020 when the pic was dated before Covid hit, pulling in an additional 4.2 million views on social media 24 hours after the telecast. Also, it’s possible we’ll see a spot for Jordan Peele’s Nope (July 22).

Of particular note, we hear that the Jurassic World-Winter Olympics tie-in spots featuring snowboarder Shaun White, ice skater Nathan Chen and downhill racer Mikaela Shiffrin, which have already debuted, are expected to air again. Universal is known for promoting its big event films through the Symphony program which pushes their feature slate through various tentacles of the Comcast empire (theme parks, networks, etc.). However, these spots are a double threat: A push for the anticipated blockbuster movie plus the Beijing Olympics, which will already be in session at the time of the Super Bowl and ends February 20.

Below is Shiffrin’s spot:

Meanwhile, Uni streaming service Peacock will be airing a new trailer for their Will Smith executive produced drama series Bel-Air during Super Bowl.

Last year, Universal ran trailer TV spots for F9 (which drew an additional 45M on social media channels after the game per RelishMix), M. Night Shymalan’s Old and its Bob Odenkirk action movie Nobody.

Paramount is looking to air spots for the Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum-Brad Pitt movie The Lost City (March 25), which was just announced as a world premiere title at SXSW, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (April 8). Both movies debuted their first trailers online back in December. It remains to be seen whether Paramount airs another Top Gun: Maverick spot, which already made a big cameo with Tom Cruise’s “Kick the tires, and light the fires” Bengals-Chief promo trailer during last Sunday’s AFC title game. The Top Gun sequel already made an appearance during Super Bowl 2020 when the pic was dated before Covid; it’s now scheduled to open over Memorial Day weekend.

Disney’s possible spots include Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 6), Pixar’s Lightyear (June 17) and another Disney+ spot for the Oscar Isaac series Moon Knight (March 30). All three have already dropped their first trailers. Last year, Disney had a spot for the Disney+/Marvel series Falcon and the Winter Soldier which drew an additional 30M+ views on social media a day after the Super Bowl, and a spot for their theatrical-day-and-date Disney+ title Raya and the Last Dragon.

Netflix, we hear, will air a trailer for its Shawn Levy-Ryan Reynolds reteam The Adam Project, which hits the service March 11. The movie follows a time-traveling pilot who teams  with his younger self and his late father. The pilot looks to come to terms with his past, while saving the future.

Amazon saw more than 15 million extra views on social media following last year’s Super Bowl spot for Coming 2 America, which wound up being Prime Video’s most watched movie ever. This year, Amazon will be promoting Thursday Night Football, as the streamer has exclusive rights to it in the fall.

Warner Bros, Sony and Apple, which traditionally sit on the sidelines during the Super Bowl, will continue to do so this year. Hulu and HBO Max will also not be dropping any trailers.

We’ll update as more intriguing trailer news hits.