'The Dark Knight Rises,' 'The Amazing Spider-Man,' Others Skipping Super Bowl

Major advertisers never pay more through the nose annually than they do buying Super Bowl airtime. And year after year from now until the NFL concusses and/or locks itself out/strikes itself out of existence, they'll keep paying that way as long as The Big Game keeps being the year's single most-watched network television event.

That being said . . . suppose you're distributing one of any given year's biggest potential blockbusters. How exactly does one justify passing up the most prime of prime ad space?

Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Lionsgate Films and 20th Century Fox all have major movies hitting theaters later this year, and none of the above four will be purchasing prime-time Feb. 5 advertising spots, according to the Los Angeles Times. That means no ads touting Warner Bros.' "The Dark Knight Rises," Sony's "The Amazing Spider-Man," 20th Century Fox's "Alien" pseudo-prequel "Prometheus," the re-release "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D" or Lionsgate's franchise-in-waiting "The Hunger Games."

In contrast, lesser-known independent studio Relativity joined big-boy players Universal, Paramount and Disney in buying $4 million per 30-second air-time blocks. Relativity will be schilling its military action-drama "Act of Valor," which will star real Navy SEALs. It's a big commitment for a studio that's never made a movie that ended up grossing more than $100 million. The studio's best showing so far: 2011's Persians-versus-Spartans adventure "Immortals," which earned roughly $83 million. The studio advertised the Bradley Cooper super-drug drama "Limitless" last year during the Green Bay Packers-Pittsburgh Steelers showdown, and it went on to earn a decent $79 million.

In total, Relativity is buying two pre-game spots, one during the fourth quarter and one during postgame coverage pimping "Act of Valor."

Universal, Paramount and Disney, on the other hand, will likely be respectively schilling "Battleship," "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" and "John Carter From Mars." With the game being broadcast this year on NBC, it would seem a given that Universal (which owns the network) would self-invest by buying the prime space. After all, 20th Century Fox did the same during the 2011 game, which aired on its own sister network.