Show Old-fashion Old meets high tech in Cloverfield John Horn Los Angeles Times Hollywood has mastered the art of promising over-promising and under-delivering under with Superman Returns being a handy recent example With this weekends weekend's invasion alien-invasion movie Cloverfield Paramount Pictures hopes to turn rum that equation on its ear Few movies outside of the latest Star Wars sequels have been made and promoted with such secrecy even when it came to something as simple as Cloverfields real name To throw off Internet snoops during production the film was sequentially called Chocolate Outrage and Cheese To create further mystery at last years year's Co Con Comic Con ic-Con convention different posters for the film were labeled either Terrifying Monstrous or Furious When the first trailer for Cloverfield the name comes from a street near producer JJ Abrams' Abrams offices debuted with last summers summer's Transformers there was no title for the movie anywhere From the beginning the whole conceit was dont don't say anything to anyone keep keepit it invisible Abrams says Actors who auditioned for the film and even crew members who worked on the project never saw sawa a complete script When the film was previewed last week to students at Michigan State and Florida State the security was heavy We wanted to come in under the radar and let lct people discover it says the films film's director Matt Reeves In a way it was like movie advertising from another era Cloverfield is a throwback it itself too an old- old fashioned monster movie with some tech high special effects When Lost producer Abrams pitched the idea to Paramount production chief Brad Weston the idea was to bring bringa a Blair Witch sensibility to a Hollywood staple that includes The Blob The War of the Worlds and the Japanese Godzilla series But rather than make a busting budget-busting star vehicle Abrams wanted to make a million 25 movie with unknowns The movie begins at a going-away going party for Rob who is headed to Japan as part of a job promotion Rob Michael Stahl-David Stahl has recently fallen for his longtime platonic partner Beth Odette but the feeling may not be mutual creating some awkward moments for Hud TJ Miller who is videotaping the party as a keepsake for Rob Hud's camera is recording Rob and Beths Beth's knotty relationship when a horrible attack hits New NewYork NewYork NewYork York City The Statue of Liberty is decapitated the Brooklyn Bridge ruptured the Woolworth Building destroyed Before long a giant creature is laying waste to all of Manhattan with Hud's camera taking it all in As demonstrated by byall byall byall all the fake titles the films film's makers have constructed Cloverfields marketing campaign around ambiguity and concealment The thinking has always been strategic Determined to get his teaser trailer on Paramount's Transformers Reeves wrote and shot footage for forthe forthe forthe the preview before he had even started production on the film And unlike how Sony handled its giant lizard in its Godzilla remake and Universal its oversized simian in its King Kong update Paramount has kept its movie monster inthe inthe in inthe the shadows of release pre-release advertising It undercuts the experience if youve you've been exposed to too much of it the director says As a consequence users have posted frame-by-frame frame analyses of Cloverfield trailers bringing a like scrutiny and free publicity to Hollywood horror We never expected the trailer to get the kind of response it did Reeves says And then the response was We better shut up because the movie is such a long way out We had to hold back or people would be sick of us us In not revealing the films film's existence until the June Transformers trailer and its actual title until Novembers November's Beowulf the studio has carefully built up audience interest with little new information even while maintaining the illusion that the movie represents some government-discovered government video Fearful that footage or plot twists would leak out from research screenings Paramount held none director Reeves obtained his creative feedback from friends and family What I was desperate to do was give people that exciting feeling of discovery Abrams says And that has been so undone with publicity and pre So there were no set visits by the media no announcements in the Hollywood trades no of making TV specials or the scenes newspaper stories r w Lp 1 a I It t 3 a. a You could never pull this off with I I Am Legend because you could never hire Will Smith and have no one know it says Rob Moore Paramount's vice chairman We wanted to create a sense of What is it I want more information Ve We did not want to pay payoff off offin offin in the marketing campaign what we want people to discover in the movie What's not in doubt is that the Cloverfield campaign has been distinctive creating up pent-up demand by only teasing at what really happens in the film And just as Abrams created season of cliffhangers on Alias and Lost he Reeves and Paramount have done the same thing with Cloverfields ad campaign To me Abrams says the cliffhanger is as good goodas as it gets Its It's the best dramatic device |