Untitled J.J. Abrams Production (1-18-08) (aka Cloverfield)

Agreed...I seriously doubt the entire film is from the POV of a home video camera.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to see the POV of whoever has the handheld off & on throughout the film.

The budget for the film is stated to be $30M, and all the actors had to sign on without knowing what they were signing up for.

 

The entire movie is being filmed on hand-help cameras. It will be just like "Blair Witch". And the plot is nothing anyone has guessed yet... no Godzilla, no Lovecraft, no Lost movie. There IS plenty of info about this movie out there, you just have to find it.

 

After hearing the buzz I checked out the trailer. Very intriuged. Will poke around the net for this mysterious information.

 

I recognized one of the actors in the trailer as Brian Klugman. He had a recurring roles on Frasier (where I know him from) and on J.J. Abrams' Felicity.

 

This is a sequel to Ghostbusters, and the Marshmallow Man is back!

 

This movie is sounding more and more interesting...

 

I hope they never give a good look at the monster in any of the trailers (if at all).

 

I hope it wins...the single biggest problem with Godzilla was they killed it...if he thrashed up the city and then left on his own, like Godzilla should...much of the rest of the venom tossed at that movie probably would've been forgiven/forgotten...don't "Hollywood-end" a good monster movie.

At this point my speculation is down to this:

1) Lovecraft - Cthulu movie (not a particularly huge fan of this stuff...but I know some people who will live in theater seats until they can recite the movie backwards if this is the result.)

2) Half-Life - This one really intrigues me...and it would be very much like Valve to keep this under wraps so well...and Abrams is the kind of smart guy I'd expect them to use.

3) Completely original...one way to get people not to dismiss a new idea out of the gate would be to make them wonder whether it really is new or not...this is getting increasingly unlikely...the longer they resist revealing what it is...the more it seems like it is something we know about from somewhere...going "TADA! It's Totally New" would be a let down at this point.

 

Interesting. I never thought of that. Though just today I was thinking about a Half-Life movie...

 

So Cloverfield's real name is Cloverfield? Lame. As for the trailer description it sounds interesting but nothing really new. I'm not a big fan of the Blair Witch Project or the "shakey cam" method that has become more and more prevalent in modern movies. My biggest fear is that this turns out to be nothing but a BWP style sci-fi movie with little or no footage of the monsters.

 

OK, whatever mild curiousity I might have had is now dead and buried, the corpse salted and burned.

I don't know exactly where the shakey-cam started (was it BWP or COPS or somewhere else?) but my wife and I take turns not looking at the screen until the other says it's over. I would like to find every film exec or director who thought using it was a good idea and do really nasty things to them that cannot be put on this board because of censorship.

The only Cthulhu movies I've seen that was ever interesting or remotely accurate to the original story were The Resurrected and The Unnamable. This was also a rare instance of the sequel, Unnamable II, being a better movie than the first one. The rest have all been too badly mangled or bad FX gorefests.

 

Cthulhu isn't a bad guess. I'd be game for that.

I agree with The2ndQuest on the title - has to be a placeholder. I think Abrams is too smart to go with something like Cloverfield....it just makes me think 'mental institution horror' more than 'city-wide destruction horror.'

 

Dude. I seriously cannot get this idea out of my head. That would be crazy awesome.


Now I'm probably going to be really disappointed when we find out what this really is

 

I'm rather expecting this to be a common reaction. People have developed a lot of interesting ideas about what the project might be, and I bet a lot of people have gotten attached to their pet ideas. I imagine when what the project actually is is revealed, a lot of people's response will be disappointment that it wasn't whatever much cooler idea they had gotten on board with.

-Paul

 

From what I remember, the shakey cam trend began in the mid eighties with commercials. I recall watching a comedy show called "Not Necessarily the News" that had a mock commercial advertising medicine for nausea, the result of which was from watching those particular intermissions.

 

Does anyone know for sure what Cloverfield is about???

Since the movie is only costing them $30 million to make, and they are building up enough hype to guarantee themselves a huge opening weekend, then this movie could be an INTENTIONAL piece of crap to simply generate the very hype I mentioned above in order to make some $$$$$$.

Look at the trends over the past several years with all of these record breaking weekends.

All companies have to do is hype up an inexpensive film with an expensive/impressive trailer to, basically, guarantee themselves a profit based on their opening weekend alone. Word-of-mouth would not have time to tell everyone if the movie sucks or not; especially, since this one has a very low budget.

 

Oh, you mean like Blair Witch Project or Phantom Menace?

 

At least The Phantom Menace had Liam Neeson. The Blair Witch Project had unlikable characters and was almost as ridiculous as Battlefield Earth.


This movie intrigues me. Abrams has said it's supposed to be on the likes of old monster-destroys-city movies But he hasn't really impressed me thusfar with his motion picture directing.

 

I don't think Abrams would make crap intentionally.

Though it could still be crap. I hope it's not, despite the January release date.

 

Well, he did make MI:3, which was crap...

 

New cloverfield trailer... filmed on a camera phone... on youtube... >_<

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ncISQypZl0

I'd say wait until it comes out officially.

 

Thanks. Can't make much out, but in a way, that makes it more intriuging...