Well the simplest answer would be because of money. According to statistics this year a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl could go as high as 4 million dollars.
Now you are thinking 4 million dollars isn’t much for movies that cost 70-150M$, but they are. If you have a trailer that lasts a minute and a half that is up to 12M$ which is 12% of a 100 million dollar movie, and Hollywood studios already have pre-planned marketing budgets. Also spending that much money on just 30 seconds doesn’t mean that it would be as effective, let’s not forget that they’re will be spots featured from competitive movies.
So what many movie studios did, was split a one minute trailer (The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Draft Day, Noah, Captain America 2) and release the first part on internet (for free) call it a teaser, create the initial buzz and then just pay for 30 seconds spot during the Big game. Pretty smart. That is an audience of 110 million people whose attention you got for just half the price.
Of course marketing strategy suggests that only movies with premieres during the first half of 2014 can afford and actually benefit for paying that much money on 30 seconds. The Amazing Spider-man 2 is having the latest premiere on May 2nd while The Monuments Men premieres just five days after the Super Bowl which might prove as a serious advantage and opportunity to score big at the Box Office.
So there’s this thought that’s on my mind and that is, do the expensive Super Bowl ads worth their price, especially for highly anticipated movies like The Amazing Spider-man 2 and with a premiere date in May? For 2014 there are at least two movies (The Hobbit 3 and Mockingjay Part I) for which we know that will most likely outperform almost all of the movies that were advertised during the Super Bowl. True there are many factors that influence movies’ Box Office results, but the difference can’t be all that drastic with or without a 30 second 4M$ commercial. Is the Super Bowl an unwanted expenditure for movie studios? Do the advertised movies get more audience (and more revenue) or do the studios pay for it just to be head to head with the competition?
Here are five of the Super Bowl official movie spots:
Need for Speed movie starring Aaron Paul.
Noah starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Saoirse Ronan, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson.
Pompeii starring Kit Harington.
The Monuments Men starring Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin and George Clooney.
You can watch The Amazing Spider-man 2 teaser and trailer here.