‘Cloverfield’ hype drew attention from film
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By MELISSA OLSON
Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:19 AM CDT
For the Herald
Just a few months ago, people could not stop talking about “Cloverfield,” the monster-destroys-New-York movie that was produced by “Lost’s” JJ Abrams and shot on handheld cameras. From the first teaser trailer back in July through the film’s crazy-successful opening weekend in January, people were talking about that camera setup, the shocking images from the trailer, and the monster glimpsed in previews and Internet spots. Newspapers and magazines started printing rumors of a sequel, and internet fanpages gleefully hoarded potential photos and clips leaked from the film.
Yes, people talked about “Cloverfield,” — and then one day, they weren’t anymore. And “Cloverfield” suddenly became the first movie in history whose successful marketing plan may have hurt it. Because the reason we all started talking about Cloverfield was the massive, inventive PR strategy that preceded it.
It worked like this: way back in July, during advance screenings of the new Transformers movie, this weird little trailer popped up for a movie that no one had ever heard of. Actually, it wasn’t much of a trailer — what we saw was a handheld video record of some guy’s going-away party. There’s dancing and flirting, and everyone’s going to miss Rob…and then there are some explosions, and the head of the Statue of Liberty is thrown clear across Manhattan.
The trailer aired without a title, without explanation or forewarning, and it completely shocked audiences, who naturally wanted to know where the heck it had come from.
So people went where they always go for information these days — the internet. And it was ready for them. JJ Abrams reused the same successful web concept he’d developed for “Lost” — a series of peripheral Web sites that kept the hints coming without ever revealing much information about the movie they were promoting. Cloverfield may have been a movie about a monster attacking Manhattan, but it was also an interactive experience with roots seeping all over the world wide web. And movie fans couldn’t stop talking about it.
The buzz built and built, and six months later the film itself was finally released, to a huge opening weekend box office. And for a few more days, the buzz continued. And then peaked. And then stopped entirely. A different horror movie came out, Hannah Montana temporarily took the American box office hostage, and suddenly no one remembered the little movie that really, really could.
So what happened? How does a movie go from being the most talked-about thing of the year to just another low-grade horror movie that no one remembers? How can a film be so successful in terms of marketing and box office and then drop off the radar entirely?
In retrospect, I think the problem was that while people were talking about “Cloverfield,” they were talking about all the wrong things. Everyone saw — and went nuts over — the Web sites and the teasers and the whole intrigue of the thing, and missed what was really great about this movie — the actual movie.
The coolest, most memorable thing about “Cloverfield” is that it does for creature features what “The Sixth Sense” did for horror and what “Unbreakable” did for comic book movies — it reinvents a genre, or more accurately, it delivers the defibrillator shock needed to make a genre rise up, fresh and alive again.
“Cloverfield,” you see, is a completely typical monster movie — along the lines of “Godzilla” or “King Kong” or even 2006’s “The Host” — that had a very atypical protagonist. This is actually an entire movie about cannon fodder.
Think about it. You know how in any monster movie there’s a scene where a crowd runs away from the beast? As the government and the scientists are still trying to figure out what’s to be done, the monster rampages down a city street, killing hapless bystanders? Well, “Cloverfield” is all about the hapless bystanders.
The story in the film isn’t about the government or scientific response to the monster, it’s about a handful of ordinary people attending Rob’s going-away party who accidentally get in the monster’s way. And that, frankly, is what makes “Cloverfield” a very cool, very watchable movie. It’s a fresh spin on an old song.
It’s unfortunate that so many people missed that while the movie was in theaters. We all got so caught up in the rumors and the internet, the synergy of the thing, that few people noticed what was actually a pretty good little movie, with good scares, relatable characters, and a monster that’s pretty darn awesome.
Now, though, “Cloverfield” has arrived in video stores, and you get a second chance to see it as an actual movie, rather than a marketing phenomenon — in other words, to stop talking and start watching. Ignore the marketing push, and just check out the film.
You might be surprised at just how interesting cannon fodder can be.
A Chippewa Falls native, Melissa Olson graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in film. She works in Madison for the television program Discover Wisconsin. E-mail comments and questions to Melissa at mfo.usc@gmail.com.
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