It’s the biggest thing watched on television, with more than 90.7 million viewers tuning in to the game last year. This makes the Super Bowl amazingly attractive to advertisers, and CBS knows it, asking agencies to pony up around $2.6 million to place just 30 seconds of screen time on their product this year. And, usually, the film marketeers know that Super Bowl weekend is the time to officially start the buzz humming on their big summer hopes.

So, why not this year?

Despite the Super Bowl reaching far out from just the regular football crowd, there’s been a hesitation from many of the big Studios to splash out on promoting their major titles due to be released during the annual summer silly season. Part of this is down to what has already been coined as the summer of the threes, in that many of this year’s blockbuster hopefuls are franchise extensions or straight sequels. In particular, films such as Spider-Man 3, Shrek The Third, Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 and Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix all have their audiences built in, and awareness is already super-high for these sure-to-be powerful box-office performers.

Which leaves this year’s crop of movies vying for commercial break attention to a pair of Disney spots, for the Tim Allen-John Travolta road comedy Wild Hogs, out March 2, and their second computer animated feature, Meet The Robinsons, which opens March 30 and needs to perform strongly for a variety of reasons. It’s an interesting scenario, especially after the past few years that saw movie companies almost making the unveiling of the advertisements an event in themselves, with at least ten big releases getting their 30 seconds in the spotlight.

This is also, probably, the knock on effect that internet advertising has had in the past couple of years, where those very same Super Bowl slots end up pirated online and seen by an even wider audience. Though it remains to be seen if the Studios have decided on cutting out that (very expensive) middle man, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a fresh influx of trailers for these films soon after the big game, and more of a marketing spend towards the films’ opening weekends.

Speaking of Harry Potter, it’s just been revealed that the film book will come out, as expected, this summer, just after the fifth film in the series, which will ultimately act as a nice little warm up for the big event. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, in which two major characters will be killed off, is published on July 21. Come join the excited discussion at our Animated News & Views Forum and boost the Pottermania!

Have a great weekend! – Ben.