1/18/08: It was a pseudo-title, it was an iconic portal to one of the best alternate reality games, and it was 15 years ago that the movie clover field hit theaters. Like Matt Reeves’ third directorial effort, and arguably one of his best. science fiction film ever, was a founding sci-fi epic that has been shrouded in mystery from the moment audiences first saw that first teaser back in 2007.
What is even more remarkable than the project’s success is how well this web of secrets has been kept. Part of that is because the production itself took some now-standard precautions, but this story also includes the real reason why plot details for the JJ Abrams-produced film were never leaked online, and it’s surprising.
Cloverfield could not be disclosed as it did not technically exist yet
It’s a bit difficult for a script to leak when there are no pages, and this is the situation Reeves faced when logged in. Director of War for the Planet of the Apes Yup the Batman he pointed this out during our recent conversation celebrating the 15th anniversary, as well Primordial Relaunch of 4K Steelbooks, Clover field.
I didn’t know at the time, so I broached the topic of production losses wondering if anything had leaked. Denying that possibility, Matt Reeves told Gossipify the origin story of how he became the director of this startup franchise and how tight security was for the details that I was available:
My God. Has something leaked? I don’t think anything leaked. You know, the script was printed on crazy red paper, which you could barely read when you were shooting. We were super buttoned up. I don’t think anything leaked. I mean, to be honest with you… when I arrived, it was 12 weeks before we started shooting. And at the time, there wasn’t a script. …, I was like, ‘Well, can I wait for the script to come? [J.J. Abrams] He says, “No, because we’re shooting in 12 weeks.” And I was like, ‘Oh my god.
To really understand how important it is, we need to go back to July 2007. The launch of the first transformers Director Michael Bay’s film was already a high-profile event, with moviegoers filling cinemas around the world.
Just before launching into Optimus Prime’s big-screen triumph, the teaser below debuted untitled and without an IP of note. All we got was a cryptic video of a party turning into a night from hell, and the details that JJ Abrams was producing it for release on January 18, 2008.
That wasn’t how you marketed a movie in 2007, when the internet was still young and Netflix was still a mail order company. it’s not like when The Cloverfield Paradox debuted in 2018, where a top-secret Netflix meeting this could lead to a new film debuting in a trailer before hitting a streaming service the same night.
No one knew what this movie was about and what the central characters and creatures were. They didn’t even know the name of what they were supposed to anticipate. All they knew was that clover field came, and film marketing has changed forever .
How the story of Cloverfield was formed and the real purpose of this teaser
Meanwhile, the mystery of what the film was really about confronted Matt Reeves, as if Clover were daring him to tackle this ambitious but unscripted work. It was an issue that was quickly resolved between Reeves and writer Drew Goddard, another JJ Abrams aide aboard that mysterious vessel. As he continued to explain the scenario he produced of Cloverfield story, Reeves also highlighted how important this immortal teaser is to the entire project:
There was a diagram he drew [Goddard] I had… so Drew and I met and started talking about the plan, and then we went over a bunch of things. I’d say we probably did that for another seven or eight weeks, working together every day. And then during that time I was also planning to do this trailer, which was a big trailer that you were talking about, with all the hype at the time, the trailer that appeared on Transformers. It was actually a test for us to see if we could really make this movie. Because at the time, the idea of making a handheld camera movie that had effects and, you know, mixing the two formats together, like that kind of format to do something where with kind of a handheld camera, they could follow it ? Could you put the head of the Statue of Liberty? So we do all this crazy stuff, but we were still working on the story.
Test previews can sometimes be the most promising way to grab the attention of a fan base that is dedicated to an existing IP or eager to embrace a new concept. It’s the same approach you’ve finally seen tron the inheritance piqued the interest of his loyal fans with a concept trailer shown at San Diego Comic Con in 2009.
It should be remembered that this was still a period in which the “found images” recalled the sacred image of 1999. The Blair Witch Project. As Matt Reeves pointed out, no one had ever done an effects-heavy show in this format at the time. It was a big gamble to make, but clover field he got rich thanks to his unconventional strategy.
The crazy Cloverfield experiment becomes a huge success
Another interesting obstacle when it comes to of Cloverfield The development was that the unscripted state of the film had quite an impact on the progression. While Matt Reeves worked with Drew Goddard to finally land the story of a search and rescue drama set as a large-scale attacker named Clover was going strong in New York, another department needed guidance on exactly what to design. Here’s how Reeves recalls trying to keep his production designer, Martin Whist, updated on what was going on:
I was pitching the story to my production designer as we were doing it, and he said, “Well, is there a script?” And I said, ‘No, but I’ll tell you the story every day.’ So, every day, I’d go to Martin Whist, the production designer, and I’d say, “Okay, now let’s go from here to here.” And he basically started taking notes and said, “I’m going to New York and I’m going to walk where you say it starts until we find out it’s going to end in Central. Park and I’m going to figure out what we can shoot in New York, because we’re going to shoot in Los Angeles?But it didn’t have a script.
Through a mix of shooting days, including shooting in New York and Los Angeles, as well as warehouse and backlot dependent footage, clover field captures this story perfectly. Meanwhile, message boards following the alternate reality game also picked up little clues as to the name of this untitled film.
Before clover field was shortlisted, a mix of fake and potential titles circulated. Everyone The cheese Yup slush a Monstrous Yup gray shot it has been seen on sets or whispered online. However, the film’s content remained a mystery. It wasn’t until the end of the race that Matt Reeves, or anyone else involved, really knew what he had in his hands. The experience is something the director would sum up in the following comments:
So I guess that’s the long way to say it was going to be hard to get things leaked, because we didn’t even have a script when we started. And when we were shooting the trailer, I all remember very specifically when the trailer came out, because we had only been shooting for a few weeks. We definitely had a script at the time we were shooting, but it was one of those things where I thought everyone was wondering what this movie was all about. And frankly, we still do, so we wonder what the movie is, sort of. It was a crazy experience. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was very unique and fun.
Produced with an estimated budget of 20 to 30 million dollars, clover field he would hold his title for four months after this teaser was released. With the help of the ARG that runs 1-18-08.com, the world has moved beyond this intriguing rabbit hole that had no name. When the film was released in January 2008, it proved to be a worldwide hit, grossing $172.4 million and setting the stage for two anthology-style sequels: 10 Cloverfield Street Yup The Cloverfield Paradox.
Matt Reeves would go on to make a name for himself as a bestselling author, eventually making it to the final two sequels in Planet of the Apes reboot the trilogy, as well as direct the Batman. While these projects absolutely have their own levels of secrecy and protection, even Reeves agreed that nothing like this of Cloverfield The origin story of the seat of the pants has been running across his desk ever since.
15 years later, we are about to see a new direct sequel from 2008. clover field come into the world, with the script already running developed by writer Joe Barton . Who knows what new levels of secrecy and deception will have to be employed this time around, because you bet there will be Sara be a finished script present when the cameras start rolling.
clover field it is currently preparing to release this 4K Steelbook reissue. You can pick it up wherever you buy your physical or digital media titles starting January 17, just one day before the 15th anniversary of the theatrical release. Fans can also stream the film on Pluto TV and DirecTV, in case they want to get back into that world a little quicker.
Source: Cinemablend
