20th Century Fox

To promote the 2016 Ryan Reynolds’ superhero flick Deadpool, 20th Century Fox unleashed an overwhelming marketing blitz—from obscene, emoji-powered billboards and an hour-long “Pool Log” holiday video, to a real Tinder profile and a hilariously important testicle cancer PSA. It all helped the relatively low-budget film earn more than $745 million at the box office and become the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever. For tech-thriller Morgan, the studio teamed with IBM's Watson to create the first-ever movie trailer edited by artificial intelligence, perfectly tying an emerging technology to the film's subject matter.