Cloverfield is a 2008 American monster movie produced by J. J. Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard.Cloverfield is a 2008 American monster movie produced by J. J. Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard. First publicized in advance screenings of Transformers, the project is slated for a January 17 release in Australia, a January 18 release in the United States, and a February 1 release in the United Kingdom. Paramount Pictures is carrying out a viral marketing campaign to promote the film Clover Field.

Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives.”

To prevent the leaking of plot information, instead of auditioning the actors with scenes from the film, scripts from Abrams’s previous productions were used, such as television series Alias. Some scenes were also written specifically for the audition process, not intended for use in the film.

Despite not being told the premise of the film, Lizzy Caplan stated that she accepted a role in Cloverfield solely because she was a fan of the Abrams-produced television series Lost, and her experience of discovering its true nature initially caused her to state that she would not sign on for a film in the future “without knowing full well what it is.” She indicated that her character was a sarcastic outsider, and that her role was “physically demanding.”

Trailer:

Cast:

  • Michael Stahl-David as Robert Hawkins
  • Mike Vogel as Jason “Hawk” Hawkins
  • Odette Yustman as Beth McIntyre
  • Lizzy Caplan as Marlena Diamond
  • Jessica Lucas as Lily Ford
  • T. J. Miller as Hudson “Hud” Platt
  • Greg Grunberg
  • Blake Lively

Production: J. J. Abrams conceived of a new monster after he and his son visited a toy store in Japan. He explained, “We saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own monster, and not King Kong, King Kong’s adorable. I wanted something that was just insane and intense.” In February 2007, Paramount Pictures secretly greenlit Cloverfield, to be produced by J. J. Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard. The project was produced by Abrams’ company, Bad Robot Productions.

The casting process was carried out in secret, with no script being sent out to candidates. With production estimated to have a budget of $30 million, filming began in mid-June in New York. One cast member indicated that the film would look like it cost $150 million, despite producers not casting recognizable and expensive actors. Location filming, shot in digital video using hand-held video cameras, took place on Coney Island, with scenes being shot at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and the B&B Carousel.

Some interior shots were filmed on a soundstage at Downey, California. The film was edited to look like it was filmed with one hand-held camera, including jump cuts similar to ones found in home movies. Director Matt Reeves described the presentation, “We wanted this to be as if someone found a Handicam, took out the tape and put it in the player to watch it.

What you’re watching is a home movie that then turns into something else.” Reeves explained that the pedestrians documenting the severed head of the Statue of Liberty with the camera phones was reflective of the contemporary period. “Cloverfield very much speaks to the fear and anxieties of our time, how we live our lives. Constantly documenting things and putting them up on YouTube, sending people videos through e-mail - we felt it was very applicable to the way people feel now,” the director said.

The decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty was inspired by the poster of the 1981 film Escape from New York, which had shown the head lying in the streets in New York despite not appearing in the film itself. According to Reeves, “It’s an incredibly provocative image. And that was the source that inspired [producer] J.J. [Abrams] to say, ‘Now this would be an interesting idea for a movie.’”

The film was titled Cloverfield from the beginning, but the title changed throughout production before it was finalized as the original title. Matt Reeves explained that the title was changed frequently due to the hype caused by the teaser trailer, “That excitement spread to such a degree that we suddenly couldn’t use the name anymore.

So we started using all these names like Slusho and Cheese. And people always found out what we were doing!” The director said that “Cloverfield” was the government’s case designate for the monster, comparing the titling to that of the Manhattan Project. “And it’s not a project per se. It’s the way that this case has been designated. That’s why that is on the trailer, and it becomes clearer in the film. It’s how they refer to this phenomenon [or] this case,” said the director.

Visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his company Tippett Studio were enlisted to develop the visual effects for Cloverfield. Since the visual effects were incorporated after filming, cast members had to react to a non-existent creature during scenes, only being familiar with early conceptual renderings of the beast.

Marketing: Filmmakers decided to create a teaser trailer that would be a surprise in the light of commonplace media saturation, which they put together during the preparation stage of the production process. The teaser was then used as a basis for the film itself. Paramount Pictures encouraged the teaser to be released without a title attached, and the Motion Picture Association of America approved the move. As Transformers showed high tracking numbers before its release in July 2007, the studio attached the teaser trailer for Cloverfield that showed the release date but not the title. A second trailer was released on November 16, 2007, which confirmed the title.

The studio had kept knowledge of the project secret from the online community, a cited rarity due to the presence of scoopers that follow upcoming films. The controlled release of information on the film has been observed as a risky strategy, which could succeed like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or disappoint like Snakes on a Plane (2006), the latter of which had generated online hype but failed to attract large audiences. Chad Hartigan of Exhibitor Relations Co. viewed the several issues with the potential of the film, including a lack of major stars, the underwhelming performance of Godzilla-style films in America, and the film’s slated release in January, considered a “dumping ground for bad films”.

Plot speculation: The sudden appearance of the untitled trailer for Cloverfield fueled media speculation over the film’s plot. USA Today reported the possibilities of the film being based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, a live-action adaptation of Voltron, a new film about Godzilla, or a spin-off of the TV show Lost. The Star Ledger also reported the possibility of the film being based on Lovecraft lore or Godzilla.

The Guardian also reported the possibility of a Lost spin-off, while Time Out reported that the film was about an alien called The Parasite. IGN also backed the possibility of the same premise, with The Parasite rumored to be a working title for the film. Online, Slusho and Colossus had also been discussed as possible titles. Entertainment Weekly also disputed reports that the film would be about a parasite or a colossal Asian robot such as Voltron.

Visitors of Ain’t It Cool News have pointed out 9/11 allusions based on the destruction in New York City such as the decapitated Statue of Liberty. The film has also drawn alternate reality game enthusiasts that have followed other viral marketing campaigns like those set up for the TV series Lost, the video game Halo 2, the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero, and the upcoming Batman film The Dark Knight. Members of the forums at argnet.com and unfiction.com have investigated the background of the film, with the “1-18-08″ section at Unfiction generating over 7,700 posts in August 2007. The members have studied photographs on the film’s official site, potentially related MySpace profiles, and the Comic-Con teaser poster for the film.

Viral tie-ins: Puzzle websites containing Lovecraftian elements, such as Ethan Haas Was Right, were originally reported to be connected to the film. On July 9, 2007, producer J. J. Abrams stated that, while a number of websites were being developed to market the film, the only official site that had been found was 1-18-08.com. At the site, a collection of time-coded photos are provided to visitors to piece together a series of events and interpret their meanings.

As part of the viral marketing campaign, the drink Slusho! has served as a tie-in. The drink had previously appeared in producer Abrams’ previous creation, the TV series Alias. Viral websites for Slusho! and a Japanese drilling company were launched to add to the mythology of Cloverfield. When Cloverfield was hosted at Comic-Con 2007, gray Slusho! t-shirts were distributed to attendees. Producer Bryan Burk explained the viral tie-in, “[It] was all done in conjunction with the studio… The whole experience in making this movie is very reminiscent [of] how we did Lost.”

Director Matt Reeves described Slusho! as “part of the involved connectivity” with Abrams’ Alias and that the drink represented a “meta-story” for Cloverfield. The director explained, “It’s almost like tentacles that grow out of the film and lead, also, to the ideas in the film. And there’s this weird way where you can go see the movie and it’s one experience… But there’s also this other place where you can get engaged where there’s this other sort of aspect for all those people who are into that. […] All the stories kind of bounce off one another and inform each other. But, at the end of the day, this movie stands on its own to be a movie. […] The Internet sort of stories and connections and clues are, in a way, a prism and they’re another way of looking at the same thing. To us, it’s just another exciting aspect of the storytelling.”