Martin Scorsese Makes Super Bowl Directorial Debut With Cinematic Squarespace Ad

Tatiana Tenreyro
·2 min read

Martin Scorsese’s directorial debut for the Super Bowl has arrived.

In the cinematic Squarespace ad titled “Hello Down There,” released on Wednesday, the auteur tackles society’s excessive consumption of technology with a sci-fi twist. Extraterrestrials have arrived to Earth, but people are too glued to their devices to realize there’s an UFO flying above them. To get humans’ attention, the aliens create a website with the help of Squarespace.

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The filmmaker makes a cameo at the end, as he finds himself trapped in traffic during the alien invasion. “I told you to take Broadway. This always happens!,” he tells his driver.

The tagline for the Squarespace Super Bowl campaign is then revealed onscreen: “A website makes it real.”

The commercial was primarily filmed in New York City, which is both home base to Squarespace and Scorsese.

“At my age, it’s a stretch finding a directorial debut. When Squarespace first approached me to create a spot, I thought this was my shot,” Scorsese said in a statement. “Let’s go big, let’s do something out of this world — space guys building a website. I’m a New Yorker. We’re busy, always on the move. Would we even notice extraterrestrials living among us? It’s going to launch on this show called Super Bowl? Supposed to be big!”

In addition to the ad, Squarespace shared a behind-the-scenes video of it, giving glimpses at Scorsese at work. David Lee, who is the website design platform’s chief creative officer, explains in the clip that the filmmaker was the first pick to direct the ad and thankfully accepted the pitch to film his first-ever Super Bowl commercial. “We’re like, ‘I don’t know, Martin Scorsese, he would never do this. But if you don’t shoot your shot, you’ll never know,'” recalled Lee.

He added, “New York has always been close to the heart for us. We’ve always tried to telegraph that we’re a New York City company, so to actually work with Martin Scorsese, not only one of the greatest filmmakers of our time, but is also very much a New York icon, is something that I still can’t believe.”

Two days prior of unveiling the ad, a teaser featuring Scorsese and his daughter Francesca was released. It features the director enlisting his social-media savvy offspring to help him create a website in order to fully tap into the story for his “short film.” She teaches him what a domain is and aids him in selecting a font for the homepage. Once they’re done building the site, the famed filmmaker expresses being pleased with their creation, exclaiming, “This website slaps, kid! Doesn’t it?,” reflecting their humorous father-daughter dynamic from Francesca’s viral TikToks.

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