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Americans might brag that the Super Bowl is the ultimate celebration of sport but we know what it really is — an excuse to drink beer and eat chicken wings.
Of course I’m joking, that belittles its true importance — as the perfect place to release movie trailers.
Sadly, however, this year the movie trailers were pretty much left on the bench. To continue the sporting analogy, that took the hopes of movie fans around the world and drove them into the turf, before a 120kg monster defender took a swan dive on top of them.
Let’s take Marvel. According to the schedule, we are supposed to get no less than four superhero movies, kicking off with Black Widow in May and finishing with Spider-Man 3 in December.
Instead, we got an extended trailer of the upcoming Falcon And The Winter Soldier TV series, which will only be available on Disney+.
Don’t get me wrong — it looked fascinating. It appears that the American government doesn’t agree that Falcon should become the new Captain America and has its own candidate for the role.
Imagine that — the US government making a bad decision. It could only happen in a make-believe world …
Yet this is a clear signal that movie production houses won’t be releasing movies into cinemas certainly in the first half of this year. Not blockbuster movies, anyway.
Meanwhile, the promotion of the TV shows brings with it some disturbing new developments. And I don’t mean in terms of the heroes having to work together to triumph.
It appears my prediction from last year is coming true and fans will have to watch the Marvel TV shows before they can watch the movies — whenever those are released into cinemas.
WandaVision is proving highly enjoyable but has already introduced fans to SWORD, an angrier version of the organisation SHIELD. Where SHIELD sought to work with the heroes, SWORD appears more interested in fighting them.
Meanwhile, there are strong hints that the ultimate baddie in WandaVision will prove to be Doctor Doom, a powerful adversary who will likely be an ongoing opponent for various superheroes in multiple movies.
Even if the subsequent movies manage to convincingly write these developments in, the subtext is that fans have missed something unless they fork out for a Disney+ subscription and check out the TV shows.
So will this mean many fans will simply stay out of the cinema, wait for the movie to drop on Disney+ and watch it at home?
Sure, this will save them money but what will it do for cinemas, who are desperately banking on blockbuster movies to save them from COVID hell?
Maybe people will be happy to do both. Certainly the accountants at Disney — who in my mind all look like Scrooge McDuck — will be hoping for that.
I worry that it will merely cement this COVID-induced societal change where we watch things at home, rather than getting that communal experience in the cinema.
It’s like a football game. Sure, you can enjoy it on the TV. But the shared experience of watching something with a huge crowd, feeding off everyone’s combined emotions, makes it so much better.
I miss that and long for its return. Paying ridiculous prices for popcorn … not so much.
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