Cloverfield

Cloverfield

U.S. theatrical release poster
Directed by Matt Reeves
Produced by
Written by Drew Goddard
Starring
Cinematography Michael Bonvillain
Edited by Kevin Stitt
Production
company
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates
  • January 18, 2008 (2008-01-18)
Running time
 85 minutes[1][2]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $25 million[3]
Box office $170.8 million[4]

Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage monster horror film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, and written by Drew Goddard. It is the first film in the Cloverfield franchise. Before settling on an official title, the film was marketed as 01-18-08. The film, which is presented as found footage shot with a home camcorder, follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a gigantic monster that attacks the city while they are having a farewell party. The film was well-received by critics and it earned $170.8 million at the box office against a $25 million budget.

After years of rumors about a sequel being considered, 10 Cloverfield Lane, a movie which Abrams called "a blood relative" or spiritual successor to Cloverfield, was released on March 11, 2016.

Plot

The film is presented as found footage from a personal camcorder recovered by the United States Department of Defense. A disclaimer states that the footage is of a case designated "Cloverfield" and was found in area US447, "formerly known as Central Park". The video consists primarily of segments taped the night of Friday, May 22. Occasionally, older segments are shown from a previous video that was mostly taped over.

The first video segment shows Beth waking up on the morning of Monday, April 27 having had sex with Rob, a previously platonic friend, who is filming her. They make plans to go to Coney Island that day. The footage then cuts to Friday, May 22, when Jason, Rob's brother, and his girlfriend, Lily, prepare a farewell party for Rob, who will be moving to Japan. Their friend Hud uses the camera to film testimonials during the party.

After Beth has an argument with Rob and leaves the party, an apparent earthquake strikes, and the city suffers a brief power outage. The local news reports that an oil tanker has capsized near Liberty Island. When the party-goers leave the building, the heavily damaged head of the Statue of Liberty is hurled into the street in front of them. Hud records what appears to be a large creature several blocks away, which collapses the Woolworth Building. Later, during the evacuation of the city, the creature's gigantic tail destroys the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Jason and several other people. News reports show the Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division attacking the monster, and smaller "parasite" creatures falling off its body and attacking nearby pedestrians and soldiers.[5]

Rob listens to a phone message from Beth, saying she is trapped in her apartment and unable to move. Going against the crowd, Rob, Hud, Lily, and Marlena (another party guest) venture to Midtown Manhattan to rescue Beth. They get caught in a battle between the creature and the National Guard and run into the Spring Street station, where they are attacked by several of the parasitic creatures inside the subway tunnel. Marlena is attacked and bitten by one of the creatures. Exiting the subway via the 59th Street station, the four come to a command center and field hospital, where Marlena develops a reaction to the bite, which causes her abdomen to inflate and explode, killing her. One of the military leaders tells the group when the last evacuation helicopter will depart before the military executes its "Hammer Down Protocol," which will destroy Manhattan in an attempt to kill the creature.

The group eventually rescues Beth, who was impaled on exposed rebar, and the four make their way to the evacuation site, where they encounter the creature once more over Grand Central Terminal. Lily is rushed into a departing Marine Corps helicopter and escapes. Moments later, Rob, Beth, and Hud are taken away in a second helicopter and witness a U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomb the creature. The bombing appears to harm the creature, causing it to fall, but it then lunges at the protagonists' helicopter, causing it to crash into Central Park.

Greyshot Arch

The film skips to Saturday, May 23 (less than an hour later), with a voice on the crashed helicopter's radio warning that the Hammer Down protocol will begin in fifteen minutes. The three friends regain consciousness and flee the remains of the helicopter, leaving the camera behind, but when Hud goes to retrieve it, the creature suddenly appears and kills him.

Rob and Beth grab the camera and take shelter under Greyshot Arch in Central Park. As air raid sirens begin to blare, and the bombing starts, Rob and Beth take turns leaving their last testimony of the day's events. The bridge crumbles and the camera gets knocked out of Rob's hand and buried beneath some rubble.[6] As the air raid approaches, Rob and Beth each proclaim their love for each other just before another bomb goes off, at which point they both can be heard screaming while the monster roars in pain, presumably killing them both.

The film then cuts to the footage of Rob and Beth's Coney Island date on April 27. Rob faces the camera towards him and Beth, and zooms in on Beth, who says "I had a good day." Unnoticed by them, something in the far distance falls from the sky into the ocean. The tape then freezes and cuts out.

Cast

Further information: List of Cloverfield characters

To prevent the leaking of plot information, instead of auditioning the actors with scenes from the film, scripts from Abrams' 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. Despite not being told the premise of the film, Caplan stated that she accepted a role in Cloverfield solely because she was a fan of the Abrams-produced Lost (in which her former Related co-star Kiele Sanchez was a recurring character), 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".[7]

Production

Development

J. J. Abrams thought up 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."[8][9]

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' company, Bad Robot Productions.[10] The visual effects producer was Chantal Feghali.

The severed 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. 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'."[11]

Title

The film was initially titled Cloverfield; however, this 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.[12] And people always found out what we were doing!" The director said that "Cloverfield" was the government's case designation for the events caused by 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.[13] The film's final title, Cloverfield, is the name of the exit Abrams takes to his Santa Monica office.[12][14] In turn, the road used to lead to the Santa Monica Airport, which originally bore the name Clover Field.

One final title, Greyshot, was proposed before the movie was officially titled Cloverfield. The name Greyshot is taken from the archway that the two survivors take shelter under at the end of the movie. Director Reeves said that it was decided not to change the title to Greyshot because the film was already so well known as Cloverfield.[15]

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. The subtitle Kishin (鬼神 lit. "Demon[ic] God") was chosen for the manga spinoff, Cloverfield/Kishin, released exclusively in Japan.[16]

Production

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, principal photography began in mid-June 2007 in New York.[10] One cast member said that the film would look like it cost $150 million, despite producers not casting recognizable and expensive actors.[7] Filmmakers used the Panasonic HVX200 for most of the interior scenes, and the Sony CineAlta F23 high-definition video camera to tape nearly all of the New York exterior scenes.[17] Filming took place on Coney Island, with scenes shot at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and the B&B Carousel.[18] The scenes of tanks firing at the creature while the main characters hide in a stairwell were filmed on Hennesy Street on Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, CA. 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.[19]

Brooklyn Bridge, as viewed through the film's first-person narrative

The film was shot and edited in a cinéma vérité style,[20] 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.[21] 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."[22]

VFX and CGI were produced by effects studios Double Negative and Tippett Studio.

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.[15] 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.[15]

Style of cinematography

Sign at an AMC theater warning customers by comparing the film to a roller coaster.

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 posted 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.[23]

The cinematography affects the encoding of the video and can cause compression artifacts due to fast motion across the field of view.

Creature design

Main article: Clover (creature)

Visual main effects supervisor Nick Tom and Phil Tippett's "Tippett Studio" were enlisted to develop the visual effects for Cloverfield.[24] Because 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.[25] Artist Neville Page designed the monster, thoroughly creating a biological rationale for the creature, even if many of his ideas like "elongated, and articulated external esophagus" would not show up on screen.[26] The key idea behind the monster was that he was an immature creature suffering from "separation anxiety." This recalls real-life elephants who get frightened and lash out at the circus, because the director felt "there's nothing scarier than something huge that's spooked."[27]

Marketing

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.[28] 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.[22] 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.[10] A second trailer was released on November 16, 2007 which was attached to Beowulf, confirming the title.[29]

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.

Pre-release plot speculation

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.[30] The Guardian reported the possibility of a spin-off to Abrams' television show Lost,[31] 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.[27][32] 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.[33][34] Elsewhere online, Slusho and Colossus had been discussed as other possible titles,[35] as well as Monstrous,[36] although this was dispelled by Abrams at ComicCon.[9]

The viral marketing campaign drew the attention of alternate reality game enthusiasts, hoping to uncover information of 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,[37] and the Comic-Con teaser poster for the film.[38] A popular piece of fan art posited that the monster was a mutated humpback whale.[27]

Viral tie-ins

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. For links, see the list of Cloverfield characters.

Unlike most viral marketing campaigns this one had virtually nothing to do with the films plot or characters, instead it focused mainly on the fictional drink Slusho! and the fictional company Tagruato. Puzzle websites containing Lovecraft-ian elements, such as Ethan Haas Was Right, were originally reported to be connected to the film.[31][39] 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.[40] 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, www.cloverfieldmovie.com was created.[41] 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).[42]

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.[43] Websites for Slusho! and Tagruato (タグルアト Taguruato) were launched to add to the mythology of Cloverfield. The Japanese phone number in the Tagruato website did work and played recorded messages. one of them 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.[28] When Cloverfield was hosted at Comic-Con 2007, gray Slusho! T-shirts were distributed to attendees.[44] 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.[45] Fans who ordered merchandise received pieces of torn Tagruato documents and Japanese newspapers along with their products. Slusho! has also appeared in Fringe and Heroes.

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."[28] 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."[43]

Marketing tie-in websites also include: Jamie And Teddy, password: jllovesth, Missing Teddy Hanssen, T.I.D.O. Wave, www.USGX8810B467233PX.com and others.

At Menuism.com there are reviews for a Japanese restaurant called Garbanzos in Norway that mention Tagruato, Slusho! and Seabed Nectar.

Merchandise

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.[46] The story focuses on a Japanese high school student named Kishin Aiba, who somehow bears a connection to the monster.[47]

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[48] and its parasites that were shipped to fans by December 24, 2008.[49]

Music and sound

Rob's Party Mix
Compilation album by various artists
Released January 17, 2008
Length 64:02

Due to its presentation as footage from a consumer digital recorder, Cloverfield has no film score, with the exception of the composition "Roar! (Cloverfield Overture)" by Michael Giacchino that plays over the end credits. Similarities between "Roar!" and the music of Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube have been noted, and it has been suggested that Giacchino's overture is a tribute to Ifukube's work,[50][51] which was confirmed by Matt Reeves in the DVD's commentary track.[15] The sound track was supervised by William Files[52] and Douglas Murray[53] at Skywalker Sound.

Rob's Party Mix or Cloverfield Mix is a collection of the music played in the opening party sequences of the film that was released exclusively on Apple's iTunes Store on January 22, 2008 in lieu of a traditional soundtrack album. The Cloverfield score, "Roar! (Cloverfield Overture)" by Michael Giacchino that plays over the end credits[54] is not featured on the album, as it is the mixtape played at the party and is not the official soundtrack of the film. This album was distributed to guests at a Cloverfield premiere party held at the Dark Room in New York City on January 17, 2008.[55]

A complete soundtrack release of all the music in the film, including Giacchino's "Roar!" end title piece, has now also been released exclusively on iTunes; it has not been officially released in retail stores. A CD entitled Rob's Party Mix comes packaged in a special edition of Cloverfield made available for sale in Canadian Wal-Mart stores beginning on April 22, 2008.

Track listing
No. TitleArtist Length
1. "West Coast"  Coconut Records 3:32
2. "Taper Jean Girl"  Kings of Leon 3:05
3. "Beautiful Girls"  Sean Kingston 4:01
4. "Do I Have Your Attention"  The Blood Arm 3:35
5. "Got Your Moments"  Scissors for Lefty 3:11
6. "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)"  Parliament 5:46
7. "19-2000"  Gorillaz 3:27
8. "The Underdog"  Spoon 3:42
9. "Pistol of Fire"  Kings of Leon 2:20
10. "Disco Lies"  Moby 3:22
11. "Do the Whirlwind"  Architecture in Helsinki 4:39
12. "Grown So Ugly"  The Black Keys 2:24
13. "Four Winds"  Bright Eyes 2:09
14. "The Ride"  Joan As Policewoman 3:09
15. "Seventeen Years"  Ratatat 4:26
16. "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"  Of Montreal 4:15
17. "Fuzz" (ファズ)Mucc 4:47

Release

First publicized in a teaser trailer in screenings of Transformers, the film was released on January 17 in New Zealand, Russia and Australia; January 18 in North America; January 24 in South Korea; January 25 in Taiwan; January 31 in Germany; and February 1 in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy. In Japan, the film was released on April 5. Cloverfield opened in 3,411 theaters on January 18, 2008, and grossed a total of $16,930,000 on its opening day in the United States and Canada. It made $40.1 million on its opening weekend, which at the time was the most successful January release (record then taken by Ride Along in 2014 with a weekend gross of $41.5 million).[56] Worldwide, it has grossed $170,602,318, making it the first movie in 2008 to gross over $100 million.[57]

Critical reception

Cloverfield received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 77% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 198 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "A sort of Blair Witch Project crossed with Godzilla, Cloverfield is economically paced, stylistically clever, and filled with scares".[58] According to Metacritic, the film has received an average score of 64, based on 37 reviews.[59]

Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle called the film "the most intense and original creature feature I've seen in my adult moviegoing life [...] a pure-blood, grade A, exhilarating monster movie." He cites Matt Reeves' direction, the "whip-smart, stylistically invisible" script and the "nearly subconscious evocation of our current paranoid, terror-phobic times" as the keys to the film's success, saying that telling the story through the lens of one character's camera "works fantastically well".[60] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter called it "chillingly effective", generally praising the effects and the film's "claustrophobic intensity". He said that though the characters "aren't particularly interesting or developed", there was "something refreshing about a monster movie that isn't filled with the usual suspects".[61] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly said that the film was "surreptitiously subversive, [a] stylistically clever little gem", and that while the characters were "vapid, twenty-something nincompoops" and the acting "appropriately unmemorable", the decision to tell the story through amateur footage was "brilliant".[62] Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the film is "pretty scary at times" and cites "unmistakable evocations of 9/11". He concludes that "all in all, it is an effective film, deploying its special effects well and never breaking the illusion that it is all happening as we see it".[63]

Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film an "old-fashioned monster movie dressed up in trendy new threads", praising the special effects, "nihilistic attitude" and "post-9/11 anxiety overlay", but said, "In the end, [it's] not much different from all the marauding creature features that have come before it".[64] Scott Foundas of LA Weekly was critical of the film's use of scenes reminiscent of the September 11 attacks in New York City and called it "cheap and opportunistic". He suggested that the film was engaging in "stealth" attempts at social commentary and compared this unfavorably to the films of Don Siegel, George A. Romero and Steven Spielberg, saying, "Where those filmmakers all had something meaningful to say about the state of the world and [...] human nature, Abrams doesn't have much to say about anything".[65] Manohla Dargis in the New York Times called the allusions "tacky", saying, "[The images] may make you think of the attack, and you may curse the filmmakers for their vulgarity, insensitivity or lack of imagination", but that "the film is too dumb to offend anything except your intelligence". She concludes that the film "works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt."[20] Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com calls the film "badly constructed, humorless and emotionally sadistic", and sums up by saying that the film "takes the trauma of 9/11 and turns it into just another random spectacle at which to point and shoot".[66] Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune warned that the viewer may feel "queasy" at the references to September 11, but that "other sequences [...] carry a real jolt" and that such tactics were "crude, but undeniably gripping". He called the film "dumb", but "quick and dirty and effectively brusque", concluding that despite it being "a harsher, more demographically calculating brand of fun", he enjoyed the film.[54] Bruce Paterson of Cinephilia described the film as "a successful experiment in style but not necessarily a successful story for those who want dramatic closure". Some critics also pointed out the similarity to the Half-Life video game series, in particular the "Ant-lion" monsters from Half-Life 2, and the constant first-person perspective.[67]

Empire magazine named it the fifth best film of 2008.[68] The French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma named the film as the third best of 2008.[69] Bloody Disgusting ranked the film number twenty in their list of the "Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade", with the article calling the film "A brilliant conceit, to be sure, backed by a genius early marketing campaign that followed the less-is-more philosophy to tantalizing effect... much like Blair Witch nearly ten years earlier, Cloverfield helped prove, particularly in its first half hour, that what you don't see can be the scariest thing of all."[70]

The film was nominated for four awards: two Saturn Awards for "Best Supporting Actress (Lizzy Caplan)" and "Best Science Fiction Film" and two Golden Trailer Awards for "Best Thriller for Trailer" and "Most Original Trailer". The film went on to win a Saturn Award for "Best Science Fiction Film". It was also ranked #12 on Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments.[71]

Home media

The DVD was released on April 22 , 2008, in two versions: the standard single-disc edition and an exclusive "steel-book" special edition that was sold at Suncoast and FYE retailers in the US and Future Shop in Canada. Other store exclusives include an exclusive bonus disc titled "T.J. Miller's Video Diary" with the DVD at all Best Buy retailers, an exclusive mix CD titled "Rob's Goin' to Japan Party Mix" with the DVD at all Target and Wal-Mart retailers and an exclusive ringtone with the DVD at all Kmart and Sears retailers. Borders also has an exclusive booklet encased with their DVD.

The Region 2 DVD was released on June 9 in both one-disc and two-disc editions. The limited steel-book edition is only available from HMV, while Play.com offers exclusive cover artwork. The HMV-exclusive steel-book contains two discs.

The DVD includes two alternative endings, which vary only slightly. The first alternative ending shows Rob and Beth exiting the Coney Island–Stillwell Avenue station instead of on the Ferris wheel and features different sirens in the background as Rob talks to the camera. In the second alternative ending, just after the final explosion, Beth can be heard screaming "Rob!", followed by a very brief clip of an unknown person looking at the camera (in the commentary, Reeves said that it was one of the crew members) and brushing rubble off the lens. The film then ends with the original final clip of Rob and Beth on their Coney Island date recording themselves on the Ferris Wheel as the camera tape runs out, with two differences: there is no timestamp in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, and there is an additional beeping tone indicating the end of the tape.[72]

A Blu-ray edition was released on June 3, 2008.[73] It includes a "Special Investigation Mode," as well as all the bonus features of the 2-disc DVD in HD.

10 Cloverfield Lane

Main article: 10 Cloverfield Lane

On January 14, 2016, 10 Cloverfield Lane was revealed by Bad Robot Productions. The film is described as "a blood relative" but not "a literal sequel" to Cloverfield by Abrams, who produces the film.[74] The film was released on March 11, 2016 and it marks the theatrical feature film directorial debut of Dan Trachtenberg.[75] Reeves and Goddard are credited as executive producers in the film.[76]

During an interview with Abrams to promote 10 Cloverfield Lane, he said the creative team behind the original had some ideas on developing Cloverfield 2, but the release of movies such as Godzilla and Pacific Rim led them to abandon them as they found the concept of Kaiju movies played out. However, Abrams also suggested that he has thought of something that if they are lucky enough to get it made "could be really cool that [it] connects some stories" in a third film, even teasing a larger Cloverfield universe.[74][77] Interviews with Dan Trachtenberg and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, director and actress of 10 Cloverfield Lane, respectively, confirm that the movie is, and always was intended to be, an expansion of the first film, with Trachtenberg calling it the "Cloververse".[78]

References

  1. ↑ "Cloverfield official running time". Paramount Pictures. Archived from the original on 2008-02-13. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  2. ↑ "CLOVERFIELD (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 2008-01-04. Retrieved 2013-06-29.
  3. ↑ "Box office/business for Cloverfield". IMDb. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  4. ↑ "Weekend Box Office". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
  5. ↑ The creatures are called HSP or "Human-Scale Parasites" in the Blu-ray special investigation mode.
  6. ↑ According to the "military intelligence" feature in the Special Investigation Mode of the Blu-ray version, this was the only thing that protected the camera during the Hammer Down protocol
  7. 1 2 "Lizzy Caplan: The Meanest Girl in Hollywood?". BlackBook Magazine. November 15, 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
  8. ↑ Alex Billington (July 26, 2007). "Comic-Con Live: Paramount Panel - Star Trek, Indiana Jones IV, and More...". First Showing. Retrieved 2007-09-17.
  9. 1 2 "JJ Abrams talks Cloverfield". Movies Online. Archived from the original on 2008-02-18. Retrieved 2008-03-08.
  10. 1 2 3 Borys Kit; Tatiana Siegel (July 6, 2007). "Paramount rolls in the Cloverfield". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2007-07-08. Retrieved 2007-07-06.
  11. ↑ Scott Collura (December 14, 2007). "Exclusive: Cloverfield Director Speaks! Part Two". IGN. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
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  14. ↑ Bruce Newman (January 18, 2008). "Cloverfield: A monster for the MySpace generation". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
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  19. ↑ Lisa Blake (August 22, 2007). "Bases harnessed for double duty". Variety. Retrieved 2007-08-27.
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  22. 1 2 Ryan Rotten (December 14, 2007). "EXCL: Cloverfield Director Speaks!". Shock Till You Drop. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  23. ↑ "Hit Horror Flick Leaving Local Moviegoers Queasy.". Oklahoma City News. January 22, 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
  24. ↑ Ryan Ball (September 27, 2007). "Tippett Making Abrams' Monster". Animation Magazine. Retrieved 2007-12-06.
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  26. ↑ BOTF (March 12, 2008). "Tagruato Interview: Cloverfield Lead Creature Designer Neville Page". Retrieved 2008-03-13.
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  28. 1 2 3 Tara DiLullo Bennett (December 17, 2007). "Producer Talks Cloverfield". Sci Fi Wire. Archived from the original on 2007-12-20. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  29. ↑ Olly Richards (November 19, 2007). "Exclusive: The New Cloverfield Trailer". Empire. Retrieved 2007-11-19.
  30. ↑ Lisa Rose (July 9, 2007). "Hush-hush project stirs wild speculation". The Star Ledger. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
  31. 1 2 "Trailer for Abrams film lost on moviegoers". The Guardian. July 11, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
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  48. ↑ "Hasbro toys with Cloverfield monster". Project Cloverfield. March 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
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  50. ↑ "Cloverfield review". Syracuse New Times. January 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
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  55. ↑ "The "Rob's" Party Sweepstakes Official Rules". Paramount Pictures Corporation. January 7, 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-23.
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  72. ↑ Cloverfield Special Features – Alternative Endings (DVD). Paramount Pictures. April 2008.
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  76. ↑ Emma Thrower. "Exclusive: J.J. Abrams talks 10 Cloverfield Lane". Empire. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
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