The Super-Bowl 2014 Trailers special: Transformers 4, Noah and more!

We’re not venturing into sports just yet but the American Football extravaganza known as Superbowl is a huge event for advertising. With well over 100 million Americans watching, companies have to pay the whopping sum of $8 million dollars just for a one minute advertising slot. Only the biggest of big budget, big star blockbusters can afford to make the cut so you may be quite surprised when I tell you that among the nine titanic efforts trailered last night is the new project from Darren Aronofsky!

But before we get to that, we have the matter of a movie I recently predicted to make over a billion dollars. I speak of the fourquel of a monster series – Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Director Michael Bay (Armaggedon, Pearl Harbour, Bad Boys) returns to the series after a quick, and unsuccessful, break to make Pain and Gain. The franchise hopes to continue it success with an new human cast with Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz and Jack Reynor, replacing the old guard of Shia LaBeaouf, Rosie Huntington-Whitley and Megan Fox. This time, the Autobots are at battle with the villainous Dinobots and the technology tycoon Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), the former is revealed in the very first trailer. The film also stars Stanley Tucci and Peter Cullen. July 10th.

The second instalment in this nine-part epic is Marvel’s very own Captain America: The Winter Soldier. We’ve seen footage from this before but Superbowl unveiled the second trailer, which offers more in depth look at new antagonist The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). The plot pitches Captain America (Chris Evans) still adjusting to life in the 21st Century as well as working with SHIELD Agents such as Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Crossbones (Frank Grillo) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to bring down a new menace who’s terrorising Washington. Cap 2 also stars Emily VanCamp, Samuel L Jackson, Robert Redford, Cobie Smulders, Dominic Cooper, Hayley Attwell and Toby Jones and is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. March 28th.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is next. Marc Webb returns to direct the sequel which increases the stakes for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) who has to balance life between his superhero alter ego Spider-Man, who’s battling Electro (Jamie Foxx), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and the sinister father/son double act of Oscorp (Dane DeHaan as Harry and Chris Cooper as Norman), and normal life with the grieving Gwen (Emma Stone) and lonely Aunt May (Sally Field). The new trailer can be found here. To be honest, I’m not that impressed. April 18th.

Following on from their “Across the Internet” campaign, Muppets Most Wanted has launched a new ad in which the new doppelganging villain Clementine literally reaches out to us Across the Internet. Tina Fey, Ty Burrell, Stanley Tucci, Ricky Gervais, Lady Gaga, Tom Hiddleston, Salma Hayek, Christoph Waltz and Danny Trejo make up the human cast alongside the classic Muppets such as Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Sam the Eagle, Beaker, Dr Honeydrew, Walter and Animal. Flight of the Conchords/The Muppets’ James Bobin directs. March 28th.

With a premise of no CG, just expensive cars going ridiculously fast, video game adaptation Need for Speed is actually in good shape. It sees newly released ex-con Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul – Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman) getting back into the dragraces that got him locked up for a year. Upon hearing the news, Marshall’s ex racing partner Dino (Dominic Cooper – Marvel’s Howard Stark) puts a bounty on his head. Scott Waugh (Act of Valour) directs a huge cast including Michael Keeton, Dakota Johnson, Scott Mescudi and Imogen Poots. The superbowl spot can be found here. March 12th.

We return to the aforementioned Darren Aronofsky who, after impressing with the likes of Black Swan, The Wrestler, Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, makes his comeback with a huge budget and cast list for his new epic picture Noah. The new trailer is available but I’m shocked that a director as prestigious as Aronofsky would fall to the depths of a Twitter hashtag; this time it’s “#TheFloodIsComing”!. The film stars Russell Crowe, Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Ray Winstone, Kevin Durand, Douglas Booth, Nick Nolte and Frank Langella. April 4th.

Pompeii seems to me like one of the potential box office clunkers of the year with a decent cast list which doesn’t match its huge budget but director Paul WS Anderson (Event Horizon, Resident Evil) may prove me wrong. The new trailer unveils a fair bit of spectacle so the film won’t rely on the cast of Kit Harrington, Carrie Anne Moss, Emily Browning, Jessica Lucas, Kiefer Sutherland, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jared Harris and Jessica Lucas alone. May 2nd.

3 Days to Kill launched a new trailer too. McG (This Means War, Terminator: Salvation, We Are Marshall, Charlie’s Angles) directs this new action thriller starring Kevin Costner as an dying agent who teams up with his daughter for one last assignment which get him the life saving drug he needs. Also starring Amber Heard, Connie Nielson and Hailee Steinfeld. February 21st.

Lastly, we have another Kevin Costner project. Draft Day sees the manger of American Football’s Cleveland Browns who’s struggling to find the number one draft pick for his team. Costner will star alongside Terry Crews, Jennifer Garner and Ellen Burstyn while director Ivan Reitman (Ghost Busters, No Strings Attached). April 11th

Ben Affleck talks more on Batman vs. Superman, Fifth Bourne moves into 2015 and new pics from Paul WS Anderson’s Pompeii

Directors Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass plus star Matt Damon are the trio who made The Bourne trilogy the success it was. After they left, Tony Gilroy squandered the opportunity for a decent prequel series with The Bourne Legacy despite the talented castlist, including Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton, in 2012. We previously heard that Justin Lin of the Fast and Furious franchise was linked and that Jeremy Renner would still be playing the guy who isn’t either Jason Bourne or Matt Damon. The production seems to have opted to chance it with the mammoths of movies in 2015, I.E Avengers 2, Ant-Man, Cinderella, Jurassic World, Batman vs. Superman, The Fantastic Four, Assassin’s Creed Mission Impossible 5, Kung-Fu Panda 3, The Good Dinosaur, Hunger Games 4, Inside Out and of coarse Star Wars: Episode VII who all managed to chase Pirates 6, Finding Nemo, Star Trek 3 and, more recently, (World of) Warcraft into 2016. August 14th is the more specific release date which means it’s not too far off Assassin’s Creed.

To finish off, we’ve got a couple of new pics from director Paul WS Anderson’s new disaster epic Pompeii starring Game of Thrones’ Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Jared Harris and Kiefer Sutherland as well some more from Ben Affleck. They arrived courtesy of USA Today. Click next to cycle through the three pics.

We conclude with Ben Affleck’s latest word on 2015’s second biggest superhero release. Batman vs. Superman isn’t the official title but Zack Snyder’s sequel. “What I’ll say is that I really like Zack. From what I’ve seen of what’s Zack is doing, it’s made me very excited. One of the nice things about being an actor in that movie is they show you all the stuff before anyone else gets to see it. So all the sort of world-creation, and the take on the character and the other characters is really exciting.

And at the end of the day, the truth is it’s really directors that make movies work or not – especially these kinds of movies, where it’s about the whole world, and a rising tide lifts all ships. And if it all has integrity, if it all has a sense of realism, then it works. And if it doesn’t, than it doesn’t really matter what everyone’s doing on the screen because they just look like a bunch of Mexican wrestlers in suits.” Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane also make up the cast.

Pompeii – February 21st 2014

The Bourne Betrayal – August 14th 2015

Batman vs. Superman – July 17th 2015