Almost 100 million people had eyes on televisions over the weekend, but not all of them were sports fans. Or in my party experience, not all had the ability to tell which ones were the Rams and which ones were the Patriots (spoiler: the ones with ram horns on their hats are the Rams). But the non-football fans in the room had plenty to cheer for too. Food, commercials, Adam Levine shirtless, five seconds of SpongeBob, Tony Romo making a Reagan joke in full stride, oh and movie trailers. I write about movies. I’m going to talk about the biggest single day for trailer releases on the calendar.
Avengers: Endgame
The first trailer, and the one that got the coveted between-the-coin-flip-and-opening-kickoff spot, was for Avengers.
Not much plot but a ton of new footage. Also it got some quick emotion out of me in the first couple seconds. The trailer has its own cold open before the disintegrating Marvel Stud10s logo where it flashed through a bunch of the heroes that we lost in Infinity War. Then the rest of the trailer followed that bleak tone.
Alita: Battle Angel
Alita: Battle Angel will be the quickest to theaters out of this trailer crop. Not quite as quick as Cloverfield Paradox hitting Netflix that night, but in a couple weekends. That’s pretty quick. But also pretty desperate. This trailer just told everyone that it’s a pretty movie and then begged us to watch it on a big screen (preferably in 3D or IMAX so they get more box office returns for less people actually seeing it.)
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel was pretty good. I’ve got a grammatical gripe though. She says higher, further, faster and it sounds super BA and those words resonate through the whole trailer, but she meant to say higher, FARTHER, faster. Because she is talking about flying actual distances. Look it up. Unless her Top Gun school schtick is all just a metaphor for when she gains the super ability to be higher, farther, and faster. Then maybe.
Hobbs and Shaw
Honestly I was refilling on buffalo chicken dip during the Hobbs and Shaw trailer because by that point in the night the commercials and game had been disappointing enough. But it turns out they just played a shorter version of the trailer that had already dropped earlier in the weekend. Next.
Toy Story 4
Here’s something new in a franchise I adore. It goes thematically with the Bo Peep image that dropped on Friday. AND we got more of Key and Peele riffing and we really got to see them in their toy element at the carnival game. Best trailer until Peele outdid himself with…
Us
Already my most hyped movie of the year, the trailer kept enough of the action and plot in the dark that the movie will still have room to surprise. What they do show prompts questions. I want to know what’s up with the Rorschach motif, I want to know where these doppelgangers come from, I want to see those soon-to-be-iconic scissors in use. I just want to see this freaking movie. And the man Jordan Peele still wasn’t done with us.
CBS reminded us a few times that we were watching CBS with a promo for the final (read: finally) season of The Big Bang Theory, their new show The World’s Best that I gave a fair shake to after the game (but meh), and an actually pretty cool use of their eye logo to celebrate the network through the years. But the best CBS brands promoted on Sunday were horror anthologies.
Twilight Zone
Peele was back again to introduce us to his new Twilight Zone that will live behind their pay wall on CBS All Access. The promo itself was the one that started by ‘interrupting’ the broadcast (which reminded me of the 2015 Chevy ad that played right before the game)
Then Peele walks through an eerily empty stadium while narrating in a very Twilight Zone fashion and then walking through the famous door. Promotion perfection.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
CBS Films this year is also producing a movie based on the killer kids anthologies from the 80’s and 90’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. They placed four different 10 second spots during the game, each one giving a quick look at a different story that will be featured. There was Big Toe, Jangly Man, Red Spot, and Pale Lady. Three of which I remember from the books except for that Jangly Man.
Each clip is quick, reminds us that Guillermo del Toro is a part of it, and hits a jump scare. The movie will tell about “a group of teens who must solve the mystery surrounding a wave of spectacularly horrific deaths in their small town.” This makes it sound like they might weave the stories together instead of going full anthology with the movie. Also up in the air is the rating. These were kids books, albeit very controversial kids books, but kids books and the movie adaptation has kid actors. It would be a shame if these ended up R when this could be a great chance to have good PG-13 horror in the world. But whatever happens with this movie, I am in. And it’s gonna get me to dust off those little books and give them another read between now and August 9.
This football season may be over, but it’s always movie season, and I am newly hyped for this next round of films.