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Stars often show up in Super Bowl ads

Late actor Alan Rickman's voice is featured in Disney ad for "Alice Through the Looking Glass"

CNN  — 

In recent years, it really hasn’t been necessary to watch the Super Bowl if you just want to see the ads.

Companies are more and more willing to premiere their big commercials, featuring big stars, days or even weeks ahead of time.

The lead up to Super Bowl 50 this weekend is no exception, with ads featuring Ryan Reynolds, Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer and Alan Rickman, the beloved “Harry Potter” icon who passed away last month after a battle with cancer.

Related story: Rickman dies at age 69

Rickman’s final film role is in the Disney sequel “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” and he can be heard in the just-released Super Bowl commercial for the movie as the Blue Caterpillar.

On the eve of his much-hyped movie “Deadpool,” Hyundai was able to score a decidedly distracting Ryan Reynolds for its ad:

All Alec Baldwin wants is the perfect Super Bowl party, and he enlists Dan Marino (and the Amazon Echo) to help him.

And Liam Neeson has gone from being the “Taken” guy to a man from the future in a new ad for LG.

Compare this year’s Super Bowl ads to some of the classics we’ve come to love, including Cindy Crawford’s 1992 Pepsi ad, the 1993 Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird McDonald’s shooting competition and those loveable Budweiser frogs from 1995.