Super Bowl ads

Super Bowl Sunday has come and gone, but Super Bowl Sunday commercials? We’re going to dissect those things forever. Which brings us to the latest wave: Super Bowl commercials you didn’t see. All things science-and-future site i09 has declared this trailer for “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” “the best Super Bowl commercial that didn’t air during the Super Bowl” — but should have. We were going to argue, until we watched it. Super Bowl halftime show: Beyonce as Wonder Woman? The first installment in the franchise, “G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra,” was “critic-proof,” as they say. A popcorn movie with lots of action, lots of explosions, all while not making an awful lot of sense. It all added up to $302 million in worldwide box-office revenue, according to Box Office Mojo. So it’s no surprise that Channing Tatum is back, with a new crew […]

“Star Wars” fans hoping for a sequel to last year’s “Bark Side of the Moon” or 2011′s “Use the Force” were disappointed during this year’s Super Bowl. The Volkswagen spots were hits in previous years, but Sunday’s advertising lineup featured no pint-sized Sith Lords or adorable dogs barking “The Imperial March.” Game day wasn’t completely void of heroic fare, however, with trailers for “Iron Man 3,” “The Lone Ranger,” “Oz the Great and Powerful” and “Star Trek Into Darkness.” And at least a few ads tickled our inner geek. Here’s a look at four of them. 1. “The Rock in Morning Run” (Milk): Action hero Dwayne Johnson is on a mission to procure milk for his daughter and her friends, and he won’t let anything stand in his way — not even bank robbers, loose lions and rhinos or an […]

Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance has been linked to the super-secret Illuminati sect, and some wondered whether it was linked to the Super Bowl blackout. The rest of us? We had visions of Wonder Woman dancing in our heads. But here’s a question: Why is it that seemingly every comic book character has had a shot at the big screen of late except she of the golden lasso? (OK, we’re exaggerating. But only slightly.) Isn’t it time for a Wonder Woman movie already? As Beyoncé told Hero Complex as far back as 2008, she was gunning for the movie role of Wonder Woman. “I want to do a superhero movie and what would be better than Wonder Woman? It would be great. And it would be a very bold choice. A black Wonder Woman would be a powerful thing. It’s time […]

Time Warner saluted “The Walking Dead” — coming back on Sunday — with a Super Bowl commercial that showed the zombie apocalypse might not be so bad. Except for the mess. Norman Reedus appears in the commercial as cross-bow-wielding redneck Daryl. The busy, disgusted mom in the Time Warner spot sternly tells her husband — busy on his tablet — and Daryl to clean up that pile of walkers. It was an ad sure to tickle the funny bones of “Walking Dead” fans everywhere. But there was more to ogle. Hollywood trotted out potential summer blockbusters, including Brad Pitt’s zombie feature, “World War Z,” just before kickoff. WATCH: Game day teasers for ‘Star Trek,’ Iron Man,’ ‘Lone Ranger’ In the first half of the game, promos aired for “Star Trek Into Darkness” and the “Oz: The Great and Powerful.” After […]

How many Iron Men does it take to save 13 people plummeting earthward after a plane breaks apart in midair? Granted, it’s kind of a trick question, seeing as how there is only one Tony Stark, but the passengers’ plight made for a gripping Super Bowl teaser touting the May 3 release of “Iron Man 3.” Although “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” director Shane Black’s first entry in the Marvel series looks heavy on the action, the Robert Downey Jr. vehicle wasn’t the only upcoming blockbuster to get airtime during the big game, with new spots debuting for “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “World War Z” and “Snitch,” among other films. In all, Disney promoted three of its new releases, with “The Lone Ranger” and “Oz: The Great and Powerful” joining “Iron Man 3″ as part of the promotional onslaught. With its […]

Forget the Ravens vs. the 49ers. How does “Star Trek” stack up against “Iron Man 3″? More than half of the grown-ups who tune in to the Super Bowl on Sunday will be watching not for the game, but for the ads, according to a recent poll by Harris Interactive. And movie fans in particular have a reason to stay put on the sofa during commercial breaks, with new spots expected for “Fast Six,” “Iron Man 3,” The Lone Ranger,” “Snitch,” “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Oz the Great and Powerful” and “World War Z.” All in all, it’s a movie marketing bacchanal. Some studios have started teasing their Super Bowl ads early — an ad for an ad, if you will– and one is using the event as an occasion to debut its own app. So before you whip up […]

This post has been corrected, as detailed below. “Warm Bodies” — a film about a  zombie who falls in love with a living, breathing teenage girl — opens in theaters this weekend. But does anyone want to see a romantic zombie movie? Despite the film’s unusual conceit, Keith Simanton, managing editor at IMDB.com, predicted in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times that “Warm Bodies” would win the box office this weekend with about $17.4 million. Top 10 zombie movies at the boxoffice He noted that the 2009 zombie comedy “Zombieland” made $24.7 million its opening weekend — but that it had some bigger names involved, including Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray. “People had heard that Bill Murray was in it, and that added a cool factor,” he said. “Something like ‘Warm Bodies’ doesn’t have that cachet, so I’m already bumping the per-screen […]

The zombie apocalypse is on its way. “We’ve lost the East Coast.” “China’s dark.” Indeed, things don’t look promising for the human race in the new teaser trailer for the Super Bowl spot for Paramount’s Brad Pitt zombie movie, “World War Z,” the Marc Forster-directed adaptation of Max Brooks’ acclaimed novel. It’s the first footage from the movie since the release of a gripping first trailer for the film debuted in November. That clip played like a taut thriller tapping into modern fears about the fall of mankind. “World War Z” stars Pitt as Gerry Lane, a United Nations fact-finder and family man who desperately races around the globe to determine the origins of a zombie pandemic that has toppled civilization in short order. Mireille Enos, of late of “The Killing,” plays his wife. Forster was an interesting choice to […]

Alright, “Star Trek” fans, the wait is over — the wait to download the new “Star Trek” app, that is. With only about 100 days until J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek Into Darkness” opens in theaters (but really who’s counting?), the new app is now available for free download in the U.S. and Canada for iOS and Android at Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. Designed to appeal to hard-core “Trek” fans and more casual users, the “Star Trek” app comes with between 30-40 missions, with eight to 10 available at any given point and the option to skip missions that don’t seem especially interesting. New missions will become available every week. Some missions will involve scavenger hunts, such as finding and scanning the latest “Star Trek Into Darkness” poster or visiting an AMC theater; some tasks will use an […]

First it was “Oz: The Great and Powerful.” Then came “The Lone Ranger.” Now, it’s Tony Stark’s turn. Disney has just released a clip from another of its upcoming Super Bowl spots touting one of three upcoming blockbusters. The “Iron Man 3″ footage is only 10 seconds long, but it’s still enough to whet fan’s appetites. Some of the images are reminiscent of the first trailer for the film, which was released in October and implied that this third installment in the franchise would be far darker than its predecessors. The new clip certainly plays up the destruction seemingly wrought by Ben Kingsley’s super-villain the Mandarin. In the comics, the Mandarin was an exiled orphan who discovers a crashed spaceship. He mastered the alien science he found there and kept 10 powerful rings used to drive the ship. He used the rings’ […]