Cloverfield

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 Productions.[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]

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.

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]

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]

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

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]

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 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]

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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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 had 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.[65]

A Blu-ray edition was released on June 3, 2008.[66] It includes a "Special Investigation Mode", as well as all the bonus features of the 2-disc DVD in HD.

On the film's 10th anniversary, Paramount issued a 4k UHD Blu-ray version of the film, accompanied by the standard Blu-ray and bonus extras, it was released on January 23, 2018.[67]

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).[68] Moreover, the film simultaneously beat Titanic and Black Hawk Down to have the biggest Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend and opening weekend grosses.[69] Worldwide, it has grossed $170,602,318, making it the first movie in 2008 to gross over $100 million.[2] In Japan, the film held the top spot in the box office rankings for one week before the release of Kamen Rider Den-O & Kiva: Climax Deka took the top spot in its first weekend.[70]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 78% based on 212 reviews, with an average rating of 6.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A sort of Blair Witch Project crossed with Godzilla, Cloverfield is economically paced, stylistically clever, and filled with scares".[71] According to Metacritic, the film has received an average score of 64 out of 100 based on 37 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[72] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[73]

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".[74] 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".[75] 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".[76] Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that it 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".[77]

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".[78] 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".[79] 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".[18] 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".[80] 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.[63] 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.[81]

Empire magazine named it the fifth best film of 2008.[82] The French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma named the film as the third best of 2008.[83] 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".[84] In 2022, Aedan Juvet of Screen Rant revisited the original film, labeling it as an "influential" found footage, sci-fi hybrid.[85]