It’s been a long tradition for movie studios to showcase some of their big summer releases during the Super Bowl. Sadly, however, it’s lost some of its luster thanks to this thing called the internet which allows us to watch said trailers days in advance of the big game. And due to Super Bowl spots being so expensive, Warner Bros. elected to skip this year. Even Paramount went for the cheaper, pre-game time slot to showcase A Quiet Place: Part II.
But for the other blockbusters that were present during Super Bowl Sunday, the winner by far was Fast & Furious 9. In terms of trailer views and social media activity, the action franchise is showing no signs of slowing down. Or should I say, stalling? (Puns!)
According to social media analyst RelishMix, the Super Bowl spot and trailer (which debuted two days earlier), drew a combined 110.9 million views in the first 24 hours after the Super Bowl on various online platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. For context, during the same period, Black Widow could only muster 18.1 million and No Time to Die even less at 10.1 million, despite a costly price tag for the time slot.
The whole week was really one big announcement for Fast & Furious 9. Universal held a live concert in Miami two days before the Super Bowl, which was basically a premiere for the trailer of the movie. And it apparently worked, as pre-sales for Fast & Furious 9 tickets are outpacing last year’s Fast & Furious spinoff, Hobbs & Shaw, and The Fate of the Furious.
It truly has been a remarkable turnaround for a franchise that began as nothing more than a street-racing knockoff of Point Break. Now, it’s an international, diverse action extravaganza with Oscar-winners like Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren getting in on the fun. Who would’ve thought, eh?
