• by Larissa Faw , December 12, 2016

NBC Universal jumpstarted buzz for the eight installment of "The Fast and the Furious" franchise by taking over Times Square.

Developed with Kinetic Worldwide, WPP's out-of-home agency, and sibling media agency Maxus, the concept leveraged Sunday Night Football's audience to debut the movie's global trailer. During last night's Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants pre-show, sportscaster Dan Patrick "threw" a football from Dallas’ AT&T Stadium to New York’s Times Square where the movie's stars caught it.

At approximately 8 pm, the movie's stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, and director F. Gary Gray were interviewed about the upcoming film that was broadcast across 22 screens throughout Times Square, as well as on Facebook Live. 

At 8:10 pm, right before the game's kickoff, the film’s global trailer made its debut on TV, and simultaneously, across select screens around Times Square, while other screens displayed the film’s hashtag, #Fast8. The film's stars supported this launch by using their own social media channels to encourage people to see the clip. 

The trailer has already received more than 872,000 views. 

This promotion follows Friday's disclosure of film's title—“The Fate of the Furious—which is being released April 14, 2017.