EXCLUSIVE: For the first times since pre-pandemic times, a Super Bowl trailer broke the 100M view threshold on social media in the 24 hour period following the Big Game.
That was Disney/Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 which clocked 134.1M views across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as measured by social media analytics corp RelishMix in their annual survey of the most watched Super Bowl movie trailers.
In fact, the James Gunn directed threequel is the most watched Super Bowl movie trailer in post Big Game day traffic per RelishMix records. The movie kicks off the summer box office on May 5. The last movie trailer to cross 100M views was Universal’s pre-Covid launch of F9 during the 2020 Super Bowl which clocked 110.9M fueled by a Miami concert the Friday before that year’s Big Game Sunday.
Also breaking through this year was Warner Bros/DC’s The Flash (June 16) and Universal’s Fast X (May 19) which ranked as the third and fourth most watched Super Bowl trailers in RelishMix history respectively with 24 hour viewership of 97.4M and 94.1M. Last year, Marvel Studio’s trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had the most post-game traffic with 93.1M views.
Important to note that GOTG 3 and Flash dropped their trailers cold on Super Bowl Sunday. Some studios are getting in the habit of dropping their Big Game trailers days in advance, i.e. Uni posted the Fast X trailer online Friday, the morning after an LA Thursday night launch party with the pic’s stars led by Vin Diesel, and Amazon Studios/MGM running Air and Paramount too with Scream VI in advance of Super Bowl Sunday.
Overall, the studios aired 13 trailers this year on Super Bowl Sunday, up three titles over last year’s ten. Since 2014, movies spots have averaged 11 per game. Most movie spots are front loaded into the game, with studios not knowing if there will be a blow out — and 11 of the 13 were indeed front loaded playing up till half-time.
Two factors for the big bump in viewership online: With theaters reopened and tentpole moviegoers back, Hollywood movie campaigns are now operating at their full octane. During Super Bowl 2021, when NYC and LA theaters weren’t open, there were fewer trailers (a low six) with the most viewed movie spot being F9 (again), which only pulled only 44.5M views. People weren’t ready to go back to the movies, and studios weren’t ready to promote them.
The other factor contributing to more views for movie trailers is RelishMix’s inclusion of TikTok.
“The measurement continues to evolve as social platforms change from year-to-year — and uses the same comparative statistics across each of the titles from the 24-hour from pre-game to post game till Monday night the next day — looking at viral effect of the big game as social word-of-mouth spreads, materials are shared and reposted by superfans as well,” reports the analytics corp.
Big win here for Warner Bros. with Flash as they typically sit on the sidelines during Super Bowl in regards to movie trailers. Among the social analytics services that the Burbank, CA lot tapped, they reported that Flash was the largest trailer debut during the Super Bowl (Wavemetrix), the top ad in the game among all advertisers and the top performing Super Bowl movie trailer since 2018 (EDO) with #TheFlashMovie trending worldwide in both breadth (number of trending terms from Michael Keaton to Supergirl) and duration ahead of other titles (ListenFirst). No figures were provided. Still, hopefully that action convinces the David Zaslav run Warner Discovery to drop more movie trailers in future Super Bowls. The studio dropped the pic’s one-sheet on the Friday before the game. DC Co-Chairman Gunn has heralded The Flash as “probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made”.
Check out RelishMix’s chart below:
