I’m not much of a sports fan, but I remember when the Super Bowl was something I looked forward to watching. Before YouTube became the go-to place for movie trailers, and even before movie trailers were widely available online whatsoever, for fans of movies the place to go to see previews for upcoming summer flicks was the Super Bowl.
The last year I remember being really excited about the movie trailers on the Super Bowl was 20 years ago back in 1999 when everyone was fearing Y2K. That was the year that the first Star Wars movie in more than a decade was set to be released and I remember hoping that at some point during the game we’d get a glimpse of something new. But that didn’t happen, until recently Star Wars never advertised on the Super Bowl. However, we did get a funny spoof of a Star Wars trailer with a commercial for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me that fooled a lot of people, myself included.
That year the movie I came away from the Super Bowl excited about the most was… wait for it… of all things, The Mummy. This action-packed trailer made that film look like a lot of fun, and after the commercial I couldn’t wait for summer. It was a movie that I started following because of the Super Bowl and ended up seeing opening weekend. And honestly, I still kind’a dig The Mummy. It’s not the best movie ever, but I think watching it is still a good time.
Looking at the list of other commercials for movies that aired during the Super Bowl there was one for The Matrix that I don’t remember specifically but I think it was already getting a lot of positive buzz. It would go onto become one of the most successful movies of 1999 and would generate two sequels. I know I ended up seeing The Matrix opening weekend along with a lot of other people.
I remember too in 1999 the movie everyone thought was going to be a sure-fire hit of the summer was Wild Wild West starring Will Smith that had a spot on the Super Bowl. At that point Smith had broken out of being typecast as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and was king of the summer movies coming off a string of gigantic hits like Independence Day and Men in Black. And while Wild Wild West did make money at the box office, it by no means was a hit and today is considered mostly as a cautionary tale about producers wanting giant spiders in their films.
But after 1999 movie previews on the Super Bowl became a bit superfluous in that became so easy to see the trailers online there was really no reason to sit through the game to see them. And today when a movie trailer appears on the Super Bowl within minutes it’ll either be officially available on YouTube or a fan will have posted it there themselves, so these days watching the game is more of a tradition than getting anything of pop-culture value for it.
That being said, I do end up watching the Super Bowl every year, or at least most of it. There’s always some new movie preview that debuts there and I dig the excitement and anticipation of waiting to see what might show up next.