Wild Hogs And Pride Together Alone At The Superbowl

Variety sez: there are only two movie ads lined up for this weekend's Superbowl broadcast - down from eight high profile spots last year. Pride is one of the two films, Wild Hogs the other, and neither is a summer release - again, far from typical. Norbit will feature in the pre-match show, and I guess that's quite well watched, but that still only brings the total to three. So why no Spider-Man 3 spot, for example?

I would have thought a Superbowl spot would actually work quite well in this YouTube era. Thinking as a YouTube poster, knowing when the ad you want to record and pop up online is going to air gives you something of an advantage. Of course, simply leaking the ad to YouTube yourself would be cheaper for the studios - but then the sense of occaison is lost, not to mention the non-webby Superbowl audience majority.

In theory, the Superbowl broadcast gets people together in excited groups (don't they have anything better to do?) and these groups should very succeptable to advertising. It's an odd show of no-confidence from the studios this year, and I'm now already curious as to next year's lineup, to see if this year's weak showing is only a blip or the beginning of a longer trend.