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Universal/Marvel/Paramount
Left-right: Daniel Craig in No Time To Die, Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick and Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow
Trailers for the Top Gun sequel, the new James Bond film and other keenly anticipated movies have been unveiled during this year’s Super Bowl.
Fans also got new glimpses of Black Widow and the new Minions movie.
Bill Murray, Chris Rock and Winona Ryder were a few of the Hollywood stars enlisted to star in adverts on one of the biggest nights in the US television-watching calendar.
The cost of a 30-second spot during the game can cost more than $5m (£3.8m).
Yet that is considered a price worth paying for the exposure a slot during the annual American Football showdown can bring to a film, TV show or product.
The 30-second trailer for No Time To Die, the 25th official Bond film, opened with a previously unseen scene showing Daniel Craig’s Bond in a hi-tech glider.
“Have you ever flown one of these things before?” he asks Lashana Lynch’s Nomi, a fellow secret agent, who responds with “Nope”.
The “official game day spot” continued with a promise that “the 25th film will change everything” when it arrives in cinemas in April.
The film, billed as Craig’s final outing as Bond, will see his character return to active service to combat a new adversary, played by Bohemian Rhapsody’s Rami Malek.
Two of this year’s Oscar nominees were seen joining forces in the promo for Black Widow, the latest superhero film from Marvel Studios.
Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh appear alongside Rachel Weisz in the 30-second teaser for the first stand-alone outing for Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff character.
“At some point we all have to choose between what the world wants you to be and who you are,” she is heard saying amid scenes of explosive mayhem.
Johansson and Pugh were both up for prizes at Sunday’s Bafta Film Awards – two in Scarlett’s case – but each left empty-handed.
There was more ominous voiceover work in the trailer for Top Gun: Maverick, this time emanating from actor Miles Teller.
“My dad believed in you,” his character is heard telling Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by Tom Cruise. “I’m not going to make the same mistake.”
The long-awaited sequel to 1986’s Top Gun sees Cruise’s hotshot jet pilot become instructor to the son of his deceased former flying partner.
Dramatic scenes of Cruise in the cockpit of an F/A-18F Super Hornet pad out the trailer for the film, which lands in cinemas in July.
Other sequels to be promoted during the Super Bowl included Fast & Furious 9, A Quiet Place Part II and Minions: The Rise of Gru.
The latter – another outing for the yellow helpers from the Despicable Me series – promised a check-list of elements including “action, bad guys, snacks, explosions [and] nuns”.
A similar tactic was employed by an ad for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, whose own itinerary included “fast cars, robots [and] a wise sage” played by Keanu Reeves.
A promo for the new Sonic the Hedgehog film, meanwhile, saw US sports stars Michael Thomas, Kyle Busch and Allyson Felix sing the praises of its spiny hero.
Streaming giants also got in on the action during Sunday’s game, with Amazon Prime unveiling an ad for its new drama Hunters.
The series, which premieres later this month, stars Al Pacino as the head of a team of Nazi-hunters out to thwart the creation of a Fourth Reich in 1970s America.
Disney + also unveiled its own forthcoming wares, a trio of shows built around characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe – The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Loki.
Another Disney enterprise, its live action retelling of 1998 animation Mulan, was promoted by a trailer running two minutes in length.
Other Super Bowl adverts saw famous names co-opting scenes from well-known films to promote products.
They included Bill Murray, who appeared in an ad for car giant Jeep, which saw him parody scenes from his 1993 comedy Groundhog Day.
Bryan Cranston was seen wielding an axe in an advert for soft drink Mountain Dew, which spoofed horror classic The Shining.
Sylvester Stallone, meanwhile, recreated his iconic Rocky Balboa character as part of a series of adverts for Facebook fronted by comedian Chris Rock.
Winona Ryder could be seen travelling to the Minnesotan city of Winona in a Squarespace ad, while Jonah Hill reunited with Martin Scorsese, who directed him in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, for Coca Cola, and Gal Gadot and Molly Ringwald popped up in other spots.
In between all that, the Kansas City Chiefs pulled off a sensational comeback to beat the San Francisco 49ers and lift the the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
This year’s Half Time Show in Miami saw Latin singers Jennifer Lopez and Shakira perform a sizzling 12-minute set comprising 20 different songs.
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