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| Cloverfield | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Matt Reeves |
| Written by | Drew Goddard |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Michael Bonvillain |
| Edited by | Kevin Stitt |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 85 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25–30 million[2][3] |
| Box office | $172.4 million |
Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams, and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller (in his film debut), Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, and Odette Annable. The plot follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city during a farewell party.
Development began when producer J. J. Abrams started conceptualizing a new monster and enlisted Neville Page to design the creature, called Clover. In February 2007, the project was secretly greenlit by Paramount Pictures and produced by Abrams's Bad Robot. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles and New York City in 2007. The project had several working titles, including Slusho, Cheese, and Greyshot. As part of a viral marketing campaign, a teaser trailer was released ahead of screenings of Transformers (2007) without a title. The final title was revealed in a second teaser trailer attached to screenings of Beowulf (2007). With limited pre-release details, it garnered online speculation, including forums and websites dedicated to uncovering hidden information about the film. Several tie-ins, including a prequel manga series, were released as part of the marketing campaign.
Cloverfield was released on January 18, 2008, and received positive reviews from critics, who praised Reeves's direction and the cinéma vérité style narrative. It earned $172 million worldwide at the box office against a $25 million budget. It is the first installment of the Cloverfield franchise, followed by 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016 and The Cloverfield Paradox in 2018. A direct sequel is in development.
Plot[edit]
The footage from a personal camcorder is recovered by the U.S. Department of Defense in the area "formerly known as Central Park", bearing a disclaimer stating multiple sightings of a case designated "Cloverfield".
The camera contains two sets of recordings, mixed together. The earlier footage, recorded on April 27, 2008, shows Robert "Rob" Hawkins waking up with Elizabeth "Beth" McIntyre in her father's apartment above Columbus Circle before embarking on a date across New York City and Coney Island.
On May 22, 2008, Rob's brother Jason and Jason's girlfriend Lily Ford, throws a farewell party, celebrating Rob's new job. Jason gets Rob's best friend, Hudson "Hud" Platt, to film testimonials for Rob during the party. Beth, whose feelings are hurt because Rob never called her back after their one night together, brings another man to the party. Beth and Rob argue, and she leaves shortly before a massive earthquake occurs, causing a brief citywide power outage; the local news reports a capsized oil tanker near Liberty Island. From the roof, the partygoers witness an explosion in the distance and flee as flaming debris fly in their direction.
As the partygoers leave the building, the severed head of the Statue of Liberty is hurled into the street. In the chaos, Hud records an enormous creature several blocks away collapsing the Woolworth Building before taking cover in a convenience store. When the group attempts to evacuate Manhattan, the creature's tail destroys the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Jason. News reports show the Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division attacking the monster and smaller parasitic creatures fall off its body.
Rob receives a message from Beth, who is trapped in her apartment at the Time Warner Center. Rob, followed by Hud, Lily, and Marlena Diamond, venture into Midtown Manhattan to rescue her. They find themselves in a battle between the creature and military, run into the subway, and are attacked by the parasites. While saving Hud, Marlena is bitten by one of the creatures. The four escape the subway and enter an underground mall where they are found by soldiers and taken to a command center nearby. When Marlena begins to bleed from her eyes, she is forcibly taken to a field hospital and explodes.
Rob, still intending to save Beth, persuades one of the military commanders to let them go. He is informed when the last evacuation helicopter will depart before the military executes its "Hammer Down Protocol", which will destroy Manhattan to kill the monster. The surviving group travels to Beth's apartment building leaning on a neighboring skyscraper. After crossing roofs from the other building, the group finds Beth impaled on exposed rebar. They free her and make their way to the evacuation site at Grand Central Terminal, where they encounter the creature again.
Lily is first rushed into a first helicopter to escape before Rob, Beth, and Hud are taken away in a second helicopter and witness the creature being heavily bombed. The bombing seemed to be a success, but it lunges out of the smoke, hitting the second helicopter, and causing it to crash in Central Park, killing all the occupants except Rob, Beth and Hud.
Fifteen minutes before the Hammer Down Protocol commences, the trio regains consciousness and attempts to flee; Hud turns back to retrieve the camera when the creature suddenly appears and kills him. Rob and Beth grab the camera and take shelter under an arch. As air raid sirens blare, the bombing starts. Rob and Beth each provide their last testimony of the day's events. The bridge begins to crumble, and the camera is knocked out of Rob's hand and buried beneath the rubble. Rob and Beth proclaim their love for each other just as the bomb explodes, the camera freezing up before the footage cuts.
The film ends with the finale of Rob and Beth's trip to Coney Island a month earlier. Unseen by them, an indiscernible object falls from the sky and into the ocean before the camera cuts off.
After the credits, a voice can be heard saying, "Help us..." When played in reverse, it says, "It's still alive."
Cast[edit]
- Lizzy Caplan as Marlena Diamond, a fellow partygoer and Hud's crush
- Jessica Lucas as Lily Ford, Jason's fiancé
- T.J. Miller as Hud Platt, the cameraman capturing the events
- Michael Stahl-David as Rob Hawkins
- Mike Vogel as Jason Hawkins, Rob's brother
- Odette Yustman as Elizabeth McIntyre, Rob's girlfriend
- Jamie Harlen as Jamie Lascano, character that is part of Viral who makes a small appearance in the film
- Ben Feldman as Travis Marello, Beth's friend
- Margot Farley as Jenn
- Theo Rossi as Antonio
- Kelvin Yu as Clark
- Brian Klugman as Charlie
- Billy Brown as Sergeant Pryce
In the television store, SpongeBob SquarePants, Sandy Cheeks and other characters from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "MuscleBob BuffPants" are seen, along with some clips of Warner Bros. movies in other TVs. In addition, NY1 TV journalist Roma Torre has a cameo as herself, reporting on a television screen watched by the party-goers. The film's director, Matt Reeves, provides the uncredited voice for the two brief phrases (one normal, one in reversed audio) after the credits.[4]
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
J. J. Abrams conceived a new monster after he and his son visited a toy store in Japan while promoting Mission: Impossible III. He explained, "We saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own American monster, and not like King Kong. I love King Kong. King Kong is adorable. And Godzilla is a charming monster. We love Godzilla, but I wanted something that was just insane and intense."[5][6]
In February 2007, Paramount Pictures secretly greenlit Cloverfield, to be produced by Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard. The project was produced by Abrams's company, Bad Robot.[3]
The severed head of the Statue of Liberty was inspired by the poster of the 1981 film Escape from New York, in which the head lies on a street in New York. Reeves explained, "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'."[7]
Title[edit]
The film was initially titled Cloverfield, changed several times throughout production, and was reverted. Matt Reeves explained this was 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.[8] And people always found out what we were doing!" He said that "Cloverfield" was the government's case designation for the events caused by the monster, comparing the titling to that of the real Manhattan Project, though the government did not originate this.[9] Cloverfield Blvd is the highway exit Abrams takes to his Santa Monica office,[8][10] and which used to lead to the Santa Monica Airport, which originally bore the name Clover Field.[11]
The final title Greyshot was proposed, taken from the archway that the two survivors take shelter under at the end of the movie, but Matt Reeves said this was rejected because the film was already so well known as Cloverfield.[12]
The film received a subtitle in Japan, where it was released as Cloverfield/Hakaisha (クローバーフィールド/HAKAISHA, Kurōbāfīrudo/HAKAISHA). The subtitle "Destroyer" was chosen by Abrams and was translated into Japanese as Hakaisha (破壊者, lit. "Destroyer") by Paramount Japan at his request.[13] The subtitle Kishin (鬼神, lit. "Demon [ic] God") was chosen for the manga spin-off, Cloverfield/Kishin, released exclusively in Japan.[citation needed]
Casting[edit]
Casting was done in secret, with no script sent to candidates. 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 the television series Alias and Lost. Some scenes were also written specifically for the audition process, not intended for use in the film. Lizzy Caplan stated that she accepted a role in Cloverfield without knowing the premise, solely because she was a fan of the Abrams-produced 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".[14]
Production[edit]
With an estimated production budget of $30 million, principal photography began in mid-June 2007 in New York.[3] One cast member said that the film would look like it cost $150 million, though without recognizable and expensive actors.[14] Filmmakers used the Panasonic HVX200 for most of the interior scenes, and the Sony CineAlta F23 high-definition video camera to record nearly all of the New York exterior scenes.[15] Filming took place on Coney Island, with scenes shot at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and the B&B Carousel.[16] The scenes of tanks firing at the creature while the main characters hide in a stairwell were filmed on Hennesy Street on Warner Bros. Studios backlot in Burbank, California. Some interior shots were taped on a soundstage at Downey, California. Bloomingdale's in the movie was actually shot in an emptied Robinsons-May store that was under reconstruction in Arcadia, California. The outside scenes of Sephora and the electronics store were taped in Downtown Los Angeles.[17]
The film was shot and edited in a cinéma vérité style,[18] to look like it was taped with one hand-held camera, including jump cuts similar to ones found in home movies. T.J. Miller, who plays Hud, has said in various interviews that he taped a third of the movie and almost half of it made it into the film.[19] 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. According to him: "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."[20]
VFX and CGI were produced by effects studios Double Negative and Tippett Studio.[21][22][23]
Several of the filmmakers are heard but not seen in the film. The man yelling "Oh my God!" repeatedly when the head of the Statue of Liberty lands in the street is producer Bryan Burk, and director Matt Reeves voiced the whispered radio broadcast at the end of the credits.[12] After viewing a cut of the film, Steven Spielberg suggested giving the audience a hint at the fate of the monster during the climax, which resulted in the addition of a countdown overheard on the helicopter's radio and the sounding of air raid sirens to signal the forthcoming Hammer Down bombing.[12]
Style of cinematography[edit]
The film's shaky camera style of cinematography, dubbed "La Shakily Queasy-Cam" by Roger Ebert, caused some viewers (particularly in darkened movie theaters) to experience motion sickness, including nausea and a temporary loss of balance. Audience members prone to migraines have cited the film as a trigger. Some theaters showing the film, such as AMC Theatres, provided poster and verbal warnings, informing viewers about the filming style of Cloverfield, while other theatres like Pacific Theatres just verbally warned customers in detail at the box office about experiencing motion sickness upon viewing the film and what to do if they had to step out and vomit.[24]
Creature design[edit]
Visual main effects supervisor Nick Tom and Phil Tippett's "Tippett Studio" were enlisted to develop the visual effects for Cloverfield.[25] Because the visual effects were incorporated after filming, cast members were only familiar with early conceptual renderings of the beast and had to react to an unseen creature during their scenes.[26] Artist Neville Page designed the monster, creating a biological rationale for it, though many of his ideas, including an "elongated, articulated external esophagus", would not show up on screen.[27] His central concept was that of an immature creature suffering from "separation anxiety." This recalls real-life circus elephants who get frightened and lash out. The director stated that "there's nothing scarier than something huge that's spooked."[28]
Marketing[edit]
Before the film's release, Paramount carried out a viral marketing campaign to promote the film which included viral tie-ins similar to Lost Experience.[29] Filmmakers decided to create a teaser trailer that would be a surprise in the light of commonplace media saturation. Rather than edit the teaser from footage taken from the finished film, footage was captured during the preparation stages solely for creation of the teaser. Ernest Holzman, who would later be replaced with Lost cinematographer Michael Bonvillain, utilized the Thomson Viper FilmStream Camera for the shoot.[30] 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.[20] 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 of January 18, 2008, but not the title.[3] A second trailer was released on November 16, 2007, which was attached to Beowulf, confirming the title.[31]
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.[32]
Pre-release plot speculation[edit]
The sudden appearance of the untitled teaser for Cloverfield, and limited details available in the lead up to the film's release fueled wide media speculation over the film's plot, with many expecting it to be an adaptation of an existing property. Among the possibilities reported on, The Star Ledger suggested that the film could be based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, or a new entry in the Godzilla series.[33] The Guardian reported the possibility of a spin-off to Abrams' television show Lost,[34] and a misinterpretation of the trailer's line "It's alive!" as "It's a lion!" led USA Today to speculate on a live-action adaptation of Japanese animated series Voltron.[28][35] IGN and Time Out suggested that the film would feature an alien called "The Parasite", with that rumored to be the working title of the film.[36][37] Elsewhere online, Slusho and Colossus had been discussed as other possible titles,[38] as well as Monstrous,[39] although this was dispelled by Abrams at ComicCon.[6]
The viral marketing campaign drew the attention of alternate reality game enthusiasts, hoping to uncover information about the film hidden online. Members of the forums at argn.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,[40] and the Comic-Con teaser poster for the film.[41] A popular piece of fan art posited that the monster was a mutated humpback whale.[28]
Viral tie-ins[edit]
All of the major characters received a personal Myspace page, all of which are accessible and featuring available photos, though blog posts have been removed.
Unlike most viral marketing campaigns, this one had virtually nothing to do with the film's plot or characters. Instead it focused mainly on the fictional drink Slusho! and the fictional company Tagruato, slowly giving clues of the secret origin of the monster that isn't addressed properly in the film. Following various clues, players discovered that the monster is an ancient amphibious organism discovered during the construction of Chuai Station, an oil platform off the coast of Connecticut belonging to the Japanese company Tagruato, which had the purpose of extracting a substance called Sea Bed Nectar that would become the secret ingredient of a drink created by its founder Ganu Yoshida,[42] named Slusho. Tagurato Repurposes Chuai Station after said discovery[43] (and pulling a coverup involving the ordered assassination of the employee who originally made the discovery[44]) using the front as an oil drilling platform also for surveillance of the monster and its parasites,[45] who are using Sea Bed's nectar as a means of nourishment for their host, applying the substance on its back. Eventually, the monster awakens and destroys the station,[46][47] before finding its way to the shores of New York at the beginning of the film.[48]
Puzzle websites containing Lovecraftian elements, such as Ethan Haas Was Right, were originally reported to be connected to the film.[34][49] 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.[50] At the site, which now redirects to the Paramount Pictures home page, a collection of time-coded photos were available to piece together a series of events and interpret their meanings. The pictures could also be flipped over by repeatedly and rapidly moving the mouse side to side. Also, if the page was left open for six minutes, the monster's roar could be heard. Eventually, Cloverfield Movie.com was created.[51] The site provided both a trailer and a number, 33287, which, when texted from a mobile phone, provided a ringtone of the monster's roar and a wallpaper of a decimated Manhattan. This eventually turns out to be a Paramount number (people later received material on Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kung Fu Panda, and The Love Guru).[52]
The drink Slusho! served as part of the viral marketing campaign. The drink had already appeared in producer Abrams' previous creation, the TV series Alias.[53] Websites for Slusho! and Taguruato were launched to add to the mythology of Cloverfield. The Japanese phone number in the Tagruato website did work, but only played recorded messages. For example, one of the messages was: "Thank you for calling Tagruato. Due to high call volumes, your call has been transferred to an automated answering service. There are no updates at this time. After the tone, please leave a message, and one of our associates will find you as soon as possible". A building bearing the company logo for Tagruato can also be seen in the TV spot of the 2009 Star Trek film, and Uhura orders a Slusho! during the bar scene.[29] When Cloverfield was hosted at Comic-Con 2007, gray Slusho! T-shirts were distributed to attendees.[54] Fans who had registered at the Slusho! website received e-mails of fictional sonar images before the film's release that showed a deep-sea creature heading toward Manhattan.[55] Fans who ordered merchandise received pieces of torn Tagruato documents and Japanese newspapers along with their products. A cup of Slusho! appears briefly in The Cloverfield Paradox, and it has also appeared in Fringe and Heroes. A Slusho! bobblehead figure also appears shaking in The Cloverfield Paradox trailer and film.
Producer 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."[29] Director 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."[53]
Merchandise[edit]
A four-installment prequel manga series by Yoshiki Togawa titled Cloverfield/Kishin (クローバーフィールド/KISHIN, Kurōbāfīrudo/KISHIN) was released by Japanese publisher Kadokawa Shoten.[56] The story focuses on a Japanese high school student named Kishin Aiba, who somehow bears a connection to the monster.[57]
Based on the film's successful opening weekend, Hasbro began accepting orders for a 14-inch (36 cm) collectible toy figure of the monster with authentic sound[58] and its parasites that were shipped to fans by December 24, 2008.[59]
Music[edit]
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