Looks like the Dude is returning…in a commercial. Jeff Bridges just teased a Big Lebowski…something, with a brief teaser featuring the message “Stay tuned.” While you might automatically assume that means a sequel, the date at the end of the footage says 2/3/19. That’s way too soon for a secret movie to be coming out – we’d have heard something by now. But football fans will immediately recognize that February 3 is the date of this year’s Super Bowl. While we don’t have confirmation yet, it’s likely that Bridges is teasing a Big Lebowski Super Bowl commercial.

Big Lebowski Super Bowl Commercial?

Can’t be living in the past, man. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/zL2CLYhGAM — Jeff Bridges (@TheJeffBridges) January 24, 2019

Here we see an older, but still abiding Dude in a very brief snippet of footage. The Dude is strolling through some noisy, crowded location, at which point the camera cuts to a tumbleweed blowing down the street – just as one did at the start of The Big Lebowski. As the tumbleweed rolls by, it reveals a date: 2.3.19. That’s the date of Super Bowl LIII, so unless the Coen Brothers, Bridges and company have been making the most top-secret movie ever, and are ready to release it in less than two weeks, we can probably assume Bridges is teasing a Super Bowl commercial.

Super Bowl commercials disguised as sequels might be a new trend we’re going to have to deal with every year. Last year, a very elaborate marking campaign made it look as if a Crocodile Dundee sequel starring Danny McBride and Chris Hemsworth was on the horizon. The “trailers” ended up being for an Australian tourism ad that aired on Super Bowl Sunday.

The Big Lebowski celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018, and remains a cult classic. The Coen Brothers comedy starred Bridges as a stoned-out slacker who becomes a kind of bumbling private detective when he gets mixed up in a kidnapping plot. Lebowski came on the heels of the Coen Brothers’ Oscar win for Fargo, which put the indie filmmakers in the public eye in a way they never had been before. There was a lot of anticipation for what they would do next, and when The Big Lebowski opened in March of 1998, audiences were…confused. The movie’s quirky comedy puzzled mainstream audiences who knew the Coens almost entirely from Fargo, even though that film had its fair share of offbeat humor as well.

In the years since its release, however, Lebowski has earned a devoted fanbase. It’s easily one of the Coens’ most-quotable movies, and the idea of Bridges stepping back into the role, albeit briefly, is sure to please many. Keep your eyes peeled for more info as we get closer to the Super Bowl.