The Stackpile

January is normally considered a graveyard month for movies—it’s where bad films go to be buried. But there is one movie that has me excited this winter: Cloverfield.

The weird thing is, I have no idea what Cloverfield is about.  But then again, neither does anybody else.  That’s what’s got us all charged up.

Other than a brief, extremely shaky and confusing trailer, Paramount Pictures has released very little information on the film.  Instead, they’ve opted for a risky marketing campaign whose central driving force is secrecy and speculation.  The trailer was released months ago, but it’s hard to glean any facts from it.  New York appears to be under attack, but by who, or what?  And Cloverfield—what does that mean?  As cryptic a title as it is, the original trailer actually aired without a title of any kind—only the numbers 11808 (the release date). In fact, the film was reportedly shrouded in secrecy from the beginning. During auditions, for example, actors were not allowed to see the full script.  Some were given decoy lines written specifically for audition purposes.

Of course, the film’s producer, J.J. Abrams, is no stranger to hype.  He is the creator of two TV series founded on the interplay between mystery and revelation: Alias and Lost.  But it will be interesting to see if his bet pays off this time.  This sort of gimmick has been pulled before in the movie world—similar internet-heavy, uber-secretive campaigns were launched for the Blair Witch Project and Snakes on a Plane.  But pre-release hype does not always translate into cash flow. Blair Witch was a huge hit, but Snakes…well, all I remember from that is Samuel L. Jackson screaming, “I have had it with these [expletive deleted] snakes on the [expletive deleted] plane!” And that I got for free, from YouTube.

I guess we’ll see this Friday if Cloverfield goes the way of the witch or the way of the snake (on a plane).

Posted by Simon on January 16th, 2008
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