We are so close now to the end of this drought in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Avengers: Infinity War” dropped the wildest cliffhanger we’ve ever seen in a blockbuster franchise, and “Ant-Man and the Wasp” two months later was set before and during that whole thing. But finally, “Captain Marvel” promises to, even though it’s set decades before “Avengers: Endgame,” move the plot forward a bit when it comes out on March 8.
Disney’s marketing campaign for “Captain Marvel” has been robust, with two full trailers plus a 90-second “special look” during the college football national championship game in early January. TV spots have been rolling out regularly, and they even dropped a 60-second action sequence on YouTube on Saturday.
So if there ever were a moment for Disney to kick the hype into overdrive, an ad during the Super Bowl five weeks before release would be perfect. But is that going to happen?
Officially, we do not know what Disney’s plans are for the Super Bowl, for “Captain Marvel” or “Avengers: Endgame” or “Toy Story 4” or anything else on the company’s schedule for 2019. We suspect a trailer for “Endgame” is imminent — it just would be the right time for it — but what’s next for the marketing on “Captain Marvel” is anyone’s guess.
It would make sense to really fire up the TV campaign with a Super Bowl ad, but you have to wonder whether they’d want to run trailers for two different MCU movies in the same day. They may want to just do one. And if they have to pick one it would probably be the next “Avengers” movie because we’ve only seen that single, cryptic trailer so far for that one.
On the other hand, both “Infinity War” and “Black Panther” got Super Bowl spots a year ago, so there’s certainly precedent for Disney doing both. But this is all guesswork — we do not know the answer to this question yet. But our feeling is that it’s very likely we’ll get an “Avengers: Endgame” trailer and more of a coin flip whether we get a “Captain Marvel” one as well. We’ll find out soon enough.