Martin Scorsese Escapes an Inconvenient Alien Invasion in Super Bowl Ad He Directed

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Martin Scorsese is just trying to get around Manhattan…until aliens get in his way.

The Oscar winner and “Killers of the Flower Moon” 2024 Academy Award nominee directs and stars in short film “Hello Down There,” which will be televised during this year’s Super Bowl.

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The logline reads: “What does a highly advanced civilization have to do to get noticed around here? Watch the extended cut of ‘Hello Down There,’ a tale of intergalactic outreach, directed by Martin Scorsese.”

The Squarespace ad is the second commercial for the brand involving Scorsese, with the auteur appearing alongside daughter Francesca Scorsese for a previously-released “making of” spot that showed the concept behind “Hello Down There.”

“A 30-second film is much harder because each scene is like a second, maybe?” Scorsese said in the commercial. “The main character happens to be a website. Now, the thing is, I don’t really know what a website is or what it thinks about, what it cares about, if it cares about anything at all.”

He added, “I need to sort of get inside the sense of what a website is.”

Scorsese also helmed an upcoming Timothée Chalamet and Havana Liu Rose Chanel commercial, with Francesca serving as creative director. The father-daughter duo are set to release a book with A24.

The “Departed” director formerly said in a behind-the-scenes look at the highly-anticipated Chanel ad that helming a commercial is an “intense” process.

“To think in terms of telling a story in 60 seconds, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been making pictures and how long you’ve been trying to tell stories, this is a real workout,” Scorsese said. “It is probably the most difficult thing to do.”

Scorsese’s next film was announced to be an 80-minute movie titled “A Life of Jesus.” Scorsese assured in an interview with The Los Angeles Times that the film will not “proselytize” but instead focus on “Jesus’ core teachings in a way that explores the principles” of Christianity.

“I’m trying to find a new way to make it more accessible and take away the negative onus of what has been associated with organized religion,” Scorsese said. According to the L.A. Times, Scorsese “plans to shoot it later this year” in 2024.

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