Universal Wins for Movie Trailer Likeability at Super Bowl LX
According to iSpot data, Super Bowl LX’s movie trailers reinforced a familiar takeaway: Recognizable characters and franchises
Movie trailers don’t typically make up a major share of Super Bowl advertising, but this year’s Big Game still delivered a handful of big-studio teasers, offering audiences an early look at films slated for theaters in 2026.
According to iSpot data, Super Bowl LX’s movie trailers reinforced a familiar takeaway: Recognizable characters and franchises — especially those that resonate with younger audiences — remain a good bet. That insight echoes a broader Super Bowl trend in which advertisers continue to lean heavily on celebrities, nostalgia and familiar storytelling to break through.
Universal aired two spots during the game, for Super Mario Galaxy and Minions & Monsters, both of which outperformed the others from Netflix, Amazon MGM and Lucasfilm across multiple components including attention, likeability and watchability.
Minions & Monsters in particular over-indexed with younger viewers: 16–20 year olds rated the trailer 35% more likeable than the recent entertainment industry norm, with young women in that age group pushing it even higher at +37%. Super Mario Galaxy found its sweet spot slightly up the age curve, scoring highest for likeability among 21–35 year olds, who rated it 36% above the category norm.
Across both Universal spots, characters were the standout element, cited as the single best thing about the ads by viewers (32% for Super Mario Galaxy and 45% for Minions & Monsters). Nostalgia and curiosity were also two dominant emotional responses, underscoring the power of familiar IP on the Super Bowl stage.
Super Mario Galaxy and Minions & Monsters also performed well on social video, according to data from Tubular Labs. The Minions & Monsters trailer, uploaded on Feb. 9 to Illumination’s YouTube page, saw 2.6M views that day alone, with 3.4M views and 29.3K engagements to date. The trailer drove viewership, as Illumination saw the highest uptick in views in the last 90 days with the release.
Meanwhile, Super Mario Galaxy has been teased via TikTok, with short snippets of the upcoming film. The account teased the release with a clip of Yoshi, uploaded on January 26 – that day saw the highest uptick in views in the last 30 days, with 2M views and 684K engagements on that day alone.
Other studios saw more mixed results. Amazon MGM’s Project Hail Mary resonated modestly, particularly with younger viewers: 16–20 year olds scored it 19% more likeable than the entertainment norm, with visual scenes emerging as the biggest draw, according to iSpot data. Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian and Grogu also landed a likeability score +14% above average overall, driven by curiosity and nostalgia tied to its characters.
On the social video front, The Project Hail Mary trailer resonated well with audiences: The release of the trailer on Amazon MGM’s page on Feb. 9 drew 3.9M views that day alone, per Tubular Labs. The trailer led to an uptick in views on their YouTube page, with 4.3M views overall – the highest surge in February so far.
Netflix, however, seemed to have a miss. Its trailer for The Adventures of Cliff Booth skipped displaying the movie’s title, sparking curiosity but also confusion, according to iSpot’s data. Viewers frequently cited “WTF” as a reaction, and the spot ultimately landed 3.2% below the entertainment likeability norm.