Warner Bros. and Sony Reportedly Sitting Out Super Bowl

Warner Bros. and Sony are reportedly benched for Super Bowl Sunday, forgoing the chance to [...]

Warner Bros. and Sony are reportedly benched for Super Bowl Sunday, forgoing the chance to premiere new looks at Shazam! and Spider-Man: Far From Home.

As reported by THR, both studios will not purchase ad space during the big game, where the cost is $5.1 million—$5.3m per 30-second spot on CBS.

Neither studio typically drops Super Bowl spots.

Sony, who was a no-show in 2018, purchased airtime for space-set horror Life in 2017. Before that, the studio's last Super Bowl spots were in 2014, where the studio went big with spots advertising Pompeii, Robocop, Monuments Men and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Despite a prolific 2019 slate that includes the followups to 2017 blockbusters Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Dwayne Johnson-led Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Sony will also be sitting out CinemaCon when the annual convention returns to Las Vegas in April.

Other buzz worthy projects rolling out this year are its Men in Black sequel-slash-revamp headlined by Thor: Ragnarok stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, the star studded, Quentin Tarantino-directed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and horror-comedy Zombieland 2 from Venom director Ruben Fleischer.

Warner Bros. also has a hefty year planned, bringing Shazam!, the next entry in its turned around DCEU, to theaters in April before debuting Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and Godzilla: King of the Monsters in May and the next Annabelle film in July.

Disney is confirmed for an undisclosed amount of airtime — except for Star Wars: Episode IX, the December conclusion to the Skywalker saga that will not have a presence Sunday — and is likely to debut new looks at Captain Marvel (March 8), Avengers: Endgame (April 26) and Aladdin (May 24) or Toy Story 4 (June 21).

Also confirmed for the big game is the first look at Universal Pictures' Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw, teaming Johnson and Jason Statham under Deadpool 2 director David Leitch, and Nickelodeon Movies' animated Wonder Park, which studio Paramount will air as a pre-game spot.

Despite a report the second Shazam! trailer would arrive last week, the superhero comedy has yet to unveil its anticipated second trailer. That look could come with Warner Bros.' The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, which reaches theaters February 8.

For Sony, Spider-Man: Homecoming trailers arrived in December 2016 and March 2017; the studio later advertised the July release with tie-in promos that featured Tom Holland and Jon Favreau and aired during the NBA Finals in June.

Super Bowl LIII airs Sunday, February 3 on CBS.

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