The hype train for many of the year's biggest blockbusters begins with trailers that drop during the Super Bowl.
More so than ever, the reaction to these trailer reveals plays a significant role in dictating the ultimate fate of a movie.
Here I'm going rank the eight movie trailers the played during this year's broadcast in ascending order of awesomeness, and assess how successful they are at generating anticipation and excitement.
I'm only including actual movies trailers, so Dundee didn't make the cut, as funny as that was. I still have a lot of love for the original Crocodile Dundee, and that spot effectively exploited my goodwill.
It's a fine preview of a decent-looking movie, but there was nothing we haven't seen here in previous trailers. Its presence in the Super Bowl has much more to do with its impending release date (it's in theatres in three weeks) and less to do with locating the film amongst the 2018 blockbuster conversation. So apart from the always-welcome Charlotte Rampling, there's very little to get excited about.
Excitement Generated: Not a lot.
7. A Quiet Place
Again, not exactly a blockbuster, but this high-concept survival thriller nevertheless has an interesting hook (the nasties hunt you via sound, so don't make a noise) and a notable cast (real-life married couple Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, who also directs).
Previous trailers focused on a few specific sequences, but this short trailer reveals more of the set-up and the world of the film.
Excitement Generated: Some (quiet) excitement.
6. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
We're getting into blockbuster territory now, but as much as I loved Jurassic World, the marketing for the sequel has yet to get me truly amped. It could well end up being super-awesome, I'm just not seeing it quite yet.
That said, there's some cool new stuff in this trailer, the opening shot of the dino-claws entering a kid's bedroom is a particular highlight.
I also like that Rafe Spall and Toby Jones are involved, but the coy teasing of some kind of newly-created super-dinosaur ("What is that thing?" "They made it...") feels far too much like the last movie – this needs to go to new places, and that isn't one.
Excitement Generated: Excitement building. But still restrained.
5. Skyscraper
I love movies about buildings, and this neo-Towering Inferno meets Die Hard meets Is-That-Neve-Campbell? looks stupidly great, emphasis on the stupid. Still very much coming across as a fake movie, I remain wholly faithful that Dwayne Johnson can make this craziness work. He has shown time and time again in recent years that he can pretty much make any movie work, no matter how ridiculous. Provided it isn't adapted from a TV show about lifeguards.
Excitement Generated: More than is reasonable.
4. Avengers: Infinity War
Excitement was already at fever pitch for Marvel's biggest ever spectacle, so even though there's only a couple of shots in this new trailer that we haven't seen before, it still manages to induce mild chills without quite going to the next level of hype.
The new shots, which are mainly Spidey-centric, are pretty cool. And that final glimpse of a grinning Thanos (Josh Brolin) is perhaps the first time the big purple man didn't look a little bit silly.
Excitement Generated: The excitement wave is cresting.
Netflix's big Super Bowl surprise – that The Cloverfield Paradox, a film originally supposed to hit theatres in April before being acquired by the streaming service from Paramount Studios, would be available to view that very evening – was undoubtedly very exciting and practically unprecedented in the blockbuster world.
That excitement quelled considerably when we all watched the generic sci-fi lump of a movie, rendering the whole affair a triumph of marketing over filmmaking. It's all too telling that the Super Bowl trailer is half-comprised of footage from the first Cloverfield film. But still, as a stunt and a surprise, it was pretty cool.
Excitement Generated: Plenty, but it was fleeting.
2. Mission: Impossible - Fallout
I simply cannot overstate my love for this series, which, five movies in, has yet to produce a dud. That is a remarkable achievement in franchise-land.
There's a huge amount of awesome crammed into this 30-second spot, which begins by teasing the return of the villain from the previous film (Sean Harris' Solomon Lane), which is a series first.
We also get a whole bunch of pristine South Island scenery, lots of stunt play, the Arc de Triomphe, some bad-ass motorcycle action (a franchise staple), a little Angela Bassett, Henry Cavill revealing that his moustache was necessary because he's playing an old-timey boxer, a dude totally being thrown through a mirror, and Tom Cruise breaking his ankle, falling off a cliff and then flying a helicoptor into a lorry. I couldn't be more onboard.
Although the Mission: Impossible spot was arguably a cooler trailer, there's no denying the level of excitement the Solo trailer stirred in the millions who viewed it.
That excitement was enhanced by the fact that it's the first real glimpse we've seen of the film, which has been suspiciously quiet on the trailer front despite being less than four months out from release.
Any notions of negative buzz due to the absence of a trailer appear to have been silenced by this reveal, even though it never really shows Alden Ehrenreich in action as the most loveable nerf herder in the galaxy. But that's the power of Star Wars. Plus that train thing looks rad.
