Tonight at midnight marks the official release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army and I’m already scoping out movie times to try and avoid the crazy opening weekend crowds that come with every new movie that debuts over the summer. Universal, who is producing and distributing Hellboy II, has come up with some really creative television promotional advertisements for the movie and The Blot can’t get enough of them.
A few years ago NBC and Universal merged to create the aptly named NBC/Universal, so it should come as no surprise that Universal would utilize the NBC family of networks to promote their upcoming movies. First it was a promo ad involving Hellboy on Bravo’s Inside the Actors Studio (which you can see here), and then on Sunday I saw a USA Network “Characters Welcomed” ad that featured Hellboy. Now the internet is abuzz with new Hellboy II promo ads featuring two of NBC’s most popular freshmen shows, Chuck and American Gladiators.
I don’t know who came up with the idea to have Hellboy interact with other properties’ characters, but it really is ingenious. The first video below features Hellboy playing video games with Chuck’s Zachary Levi (a.k.a Chuck Bartowski) and the second shows Hellboy visiting the set of American Gladiators where he runs into Gladiator Wolf (played by Hollywood Yates). There’s also a great retro “The More You Know” public service announcement starring Hellboy. I’m hoping there are a few more crossovers out there, but in the mean time check out these three new NBC Hellboy II TV promo ads below:
Hellboy on Chuck
Hellboy on American Gladiators
The More You Know PSA with Hellboy