Breaking Down the Plots of Super Bowl Movie Ads

We've broken down the recycled plot of every Super Bowl movie ad into its precise mathematical formula.

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After yesterday's preview of some of the $3.5 million ads running during tomorrow's big game, we bring you now a second batch of 2012 Super Bowl commercials -- all of them plugging upcoming movies. And if the barrage of caped crusaders and alien attacks that follows gives you a profound sense of deja vu, well, this is Hollywood, after all, where "remake what you know" is the prevailing mantra. As a public service, however, we've broken down every recycled plot for you into its precise mathematical formula.

The Avengers

(Iron Man 2 - Iron Man) + The Incredible Hulk + Captain America + Thor = The Avengers

The Hunger Games

(Logan's Run + The Running Man) ÷ Twilight: New Moon = The Hunger Games

Battleship
(Transformers + Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen + Transformers: Dark of the Moon) × The Hunt For Red October - Das Boot = Battleship

The Dictator

(The Great Dictator + Bananas) ÷ Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan = The Dictator

John Carter

(Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace + Stargate) × Flash Gordon (1980) ÷ Wall-E = John Carter

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

(G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra × G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) ÷ G.I. Joe: The Rise of CobraG.I. Joe: Retaliation

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.