A Reel Opinion: The Super Bowl Movie Teasers

The Super Bowl broadcast pulls in millions upon millions of eyeballs every year, with a good portion of them more interested in the content of the commercial breaks. Movie studios take advantage of this prime real estate to showcase what they’ve got to sell for the upcoming year. What the studios do seem to struggle with is the content of the Super Bowl audience. TV audiences and movie audiences are not necessarily the same, although there is likely some overlap. Some studios preferred to just slap together clips from trailers that have already been circulating for months, while others offered first-ever looks. But all of them took the road of the “teaser”; quick 30-second teases comprised of fast visuals with no real insight to the plot. What worked and what didn’t?

Some of the more anticipated films of the summer were showcased by way of teasers that were nothing more than shortened versions of already-existing trailers. It’s easy to cry disappointment over what we saw for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 4, COWBOYS AND ALIENS, and THOR. They offered a few shots previously unseen, but were overall just re-arrangements of months-old trailers. Clearly, these studios took the approach to aim for a wide audience, so they opted for a cheap and easy way out. Poor to no effort.

A few other studios get high marks for effort and execution, and not all of them really had to do it:

RANGO – Directed by Gore Verbinski (PIRATES 1-3), this extremely odd-looking animated flick needs a strong marketing campaign. They got their Super-spot right by going for humor and pushing the Johnny Depp title.

SUPER 8 – Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by JJ Abrams, this project has been kept tightly under wraps with only small hints towards the subject matter in a teaser released a few months back. This spot did much of the same, but included new footage.

FAST FIVE – Just another installment in the FAST AND THE (brainless) FURIOUS franchise, but at least they made an effort to show up on Super Sunday.

KUNG FU PANDA 2 – This spot ran during the pre-game show, so not a lot of eyes saw it. This blogger admits to getting a beer when it ran.

TRANSFORMERS: THE DARK OF THE MOON – Michael Bay and company really didn’t have to put anything out for the Super Bowl; they had just released a very good trailer just a few months ago. But they took advantage of the big audience and unveiled a ton of new and striking visuals, and who doesn’t love seeing Optimus Prime swing those blades?

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES - Was getting a beer when this ran too.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER – Prior to the Super Bowl, the new Cap has only been seen in print ads and behind-the-scenes still-photos. Finally, the world got a look at the first Avenger in action. Not only did the short teaser offer up a coherent thread, but it also gave us a glimpse of Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull. Shudder.
What say you?