Willem Dafoe, his eyes twinkling with evil and his fingernails filed to sharp points, plays the devil himself in Mercedes-Benz's 2013 Super Bowl ad, an extended version of which was unveiled Wednesday.
Dafoe, 57, tries to get a regular guy in a bar to sell his soul for the new Mercedes CLA. The offer sends the guy into an elaborate fantasy—set to "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones—in which the car raises his social status to the point where he's hitting red carpets with Kate Upton and dancing with Usher.
At the end, when he realizes the CLA starts at less than $30,000, the guy declines the Faustian bargain, causing an angry Dafoe to disappear in a cloud of smoke.
The ad was created by Merkley + Partners and director Dante Ariola.
Either a 60- or 90-second version of the spot, filmed partly at the Napoleon House in the French Quarter of New Orleans, is expected to air during the fourth quarter of the game.
The extended spot follows two earlier teasers—one of which featured footage from the ad, the other of which showed Upton hanging around as a CLA was washed.
