The studios aren’t the biggest purchasers of TV’s commercial time (that distinction belongs to pharmaceutical manufacturers), but they can be extremely influential. In 2019, the big movie studios put just over $2 billion into TV commercials for their blockbusters, indie films, and rom-coms, according to Kantar. In the first five months of 2019, the studios spent about $884.2 million.Īs new movie releases like “Tenet,” “New Mutants” and “Unhinged” begin to surface, the TV networks could use the cash the movie studios have long waved around to run long sneak-peek trailers and other types of creative TV spots. In the first five months of 2020, the big studios spent $356.1 million on TV ads for motion pictures, marking a nearly 60% drop from spending in the year-earlier period, according to Kantar, a tracker of ad spending. But as the pandemic has forced the closure of countless movie theaters, new questions have surfaced about how much the movies will need TV. “Tenet,” centered on a protagonist who must manipulate time to stop World War III, is slated to launch overseas, and then debut in certain U.S.

has also taken to Google, social media and digital video to promote the film, and even ran a trailer in the online video game Fortnite to raise awareness of the movie’s opening.

Yes, the studio is running trailers for the widely anticipated Christopher Nolan film on TV, but largely in live sports broadcasts like basketball games, “which is the real destination programming right now,” says Rich.

“We have had to re-imagine how you bring a movie to market,” says Rich.

Warner bros movie world commercial