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After the credits roll, a garbled radio sound clip can be heard. When played backwards, the audio says, "It's still alive".<ref>[http://boomp3.com/listen/azbvvqf/cloverfield-whisper-reverse Reversed Soundclip]</ref>
After the credits roll, a garbled radio sound clip can be heard. When played backwards, the audio says, "It's still alive".<ref>[http://boomp3.com/listen/azbvvqf/cloverfield-whisper-reverse Reversed Soundclip]</ref>

Presumably the US military dropped a nuclear weapon or something almost equivalent on the city, this can be assumed because at the begining the camera and tape were discovered at the area formerly known as Central Park.


== Cast ==
== Cast ==

Revision as of 00:54, 3 September 2008

For the creature of the film, see Clover (creature).
Cloverfield
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMatt Reeves
Written byDrew Goddard
Produced byJ. J. Abrams
Bryan Burk
StarringMichael Stahl-David
T. J. Miller
Jessica Lucas
Odette Yustman
Lizzy Caplan
Mike Vogel
CinematographyMichael Bonvillain
Edited byKevin Stitt
Music byMichael Giacchino (end credits "Overture")
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
January 18, 2008[1]
Running time
84 min.[2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million[3]
Box officeDomestic
$80,048,433
Foreign
$90,485,111
Worldwide
$170,533,544[4]

Cloverfield is a 2008 monster/horror film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard.

Before the film's release Paramount Pictures carried out a viral marketing campaign to promote the film. The campaign included viral tie-ins similar to Lost Experience.[5] The film follows five young New Yorkers attending a going-away party on the night that a gigantic monster attacks the city. First publicized within a teaser trailer in screenings of Transformers, the film was released on January 17 in New Zealand and Australia, on January 18 in North America, on January 24 in South Korea and on February 1 in Ireland, in the UK and in Italy. In Japan, the film was released on April 5. This film has been nominated for a UL Media Award for "Best Dramatic Film"

VFX and CGI were performed by effects studios Double Negative and Tippett Studio.The film has grossed $29,045,190 in dvd sales, bringing its total film gross to $199,578,734[6]

Plot summary

At the start of the film, it is stated "A camera was found in an area case designated as Cloverfield on US-447, area formerly known as Central Park". The main record of events is interspersed with footage of two main characters prior to the crisis.

On April 27 at 6:42 am, Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) awakens after spending a romantic night with longtime platonic friend Beth (Odette Yustman) in her father's Columbus Circle apartment. They plan to visit Coney Island for the day.

On May 22, Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) prepare a Manhattan apartment for Rob's farewell party, as he has accepted a job as a vice president in his company's office in Japan. Rob's best friend Hudson "Hud" Platt (T. J. Miller) is given a camera by Jason and the responsibility of recording final goodbyes from family and friends at the party, but instead unsuccessfully flirts with his crush, Marlena (Lizzy Caplan). Beth arrives with a date, Travis (Ben Feldman), which upsets Rob. To his dismay, he realizes Hud is taping over footage of him and Beth, including their trip to Coney Island, which shows up intermittently throughout the film. Lily reveals Rob and Beth slept together several weeks previously, which Hud then shares with other people at the party, making the matter worse. Rob provokes Beth and her date into leaving the party.

While Hud and Jason try to talk to Rob, a brief blackout occurs, and the building shakes. A loud guttural roar can be heard emanating from outside as there is a blackout throughout the city. When the power returns, everyone turns on the local news, where the anchor explains that there was an earthquake and an oil tanker has capsized in the bay off Lower Manhattan. Curious partygoers and apartment dwellers go up to the roof to spot the disaster, where they witness an explosion in Lower Manhattan. As fire and debris begin to rain down, the partygoers flee to the street below. A large object crashes down into the street beside them, and is revealed to be the head of the Statue of Liberty, damaged and charred. Hud is able to record a glimpse of what seems to be a giant monster moving through the city as it passes between two skyscrapers. The Woolworth Building collapses in its wake, causing Rob, Jason, Hud and Lily to take refuge in a nearby convenience store while the creature passes. After the panic, the streets fall silent, and the group finds Marlena outside, who reveals she saw the creature eating people. They decide to use the Brooklyn Bridge to exit Lower Manhattan.

On the bridge, they see the capsized oil tanker burning, and the headless Statue of Liberty. While walking across, Rob gets a cell phone call from a distressed Beth, who tells him that she is stuck in her apartment and unable to move. Rob tells Hud to stay put while he listens to the phone. Hud calls out for Marlena and Lily, but Jason, unable to hear them clearly, does not stop walking. The bridge begins to shake, and the giant tail of the creature slams down onto the bridge, crushing several people in the process, among them, Jason. The bridge collapses; Hud manages to film the destruction of the bridge as he and the others retreat.

As Marlena tries to comfort the grieving Lily over the loss of her boyfriend, Hud approaches Rob, who is still stunned at what has just occurred. Suddenly remembering that his phone conversation with Beth had been interrupted, Rob stops at an electronics store that is being looted. He steals a cell phone battery and finishes listening to Beth's message. On the news, Hud sees the Brooklyn Bridge's full collapse as well as the military engaging the monster. The soldiers are attacked by parasitic spider-like creatures that fall off the monster. The four take to Manhattan's streets to find and rescue Beth.

As the group makes their way to Beth's apartment, they are caught in a crossfire between the monster and the military. The friends barely manage to escape into the subway. The group decides to go through the subway tunnels to reach Beth's apartment. In the tunnels they are attacked by several parasites, left behind in the monster's wake. One parasite grabs Hud and tries to drag him away, but Marlena fends it off with a pipe, being bitten by another parasite in the process. The group escapes into the abandoned Bloomingdale's department store via the subway station, and are engaged by Sergeant Pryce and a squad of infantry, who have taken cover inside the department store and set up a field hospital and command center to treat the wounded. Marlena begins to bleed from her eyes and nose. When she is revealed to have been bitten, two men in hazmat suits grab Marlena and take her behind a curtain while Lily, Rob and Hud are taken away by soldiers. Hud films the curtains just in time to see Marlena's stomach expand and explode. Rob and the others have little time to grieve as Sergeant Pryce allows them back up to the streets, but warns them to report to a military evacuation site before 6:00 am, which is when the last helicopter evacuates Manhattan and the military will enact its "Hammerdown" protocol, which will allow for the sacrifice of Manhattan if necessary to kill the monster and its parasites.

File:Cloverfeildcloseup.png
The Cloverfield monster

The group continues toward Beth's apartment, in the Time Warner Center, finding her tower partially collapsed into the adjacent tower. The three climb the standing tower and cross onto the roof of Beth's building and work their way down to her apartment. Beth is found trapped and impaled but they are able to free her. After the rescue, they make their way to an aerial evacuation site where they encounter the monster once more, while the military continues to attack it. At the landing zone, Lily is raced into a departing helicopter without her friends. A few moments later, Rob, Beth and Hud are taken away in a second helicopter. In the helicopter, they see the monster bombed by a B2 Spirit stealth bomber and it appears to have been killed. Just as Hud begins hailing victory over the monster, it reaches up and attacks the helicopter. The helicopter crashes into a grassy clearing in Central Park. The three survive the crash and hear a voice on the helicopter's radio warning of the "Hammerdown" protocol being effected in fifteen minutes, with the pilot telling anyone listening that if they can hear the air raid sirens going off, then they're in the blast zone and have only two minutes to hustle it out. Hud and Beth pull an injured Rob clear of the wreckage, but Hud returns to recover the camera, and as he does so, the monster appears above him. It examines Hud for a few moments before attacking and killing him. Rob and Beth grab the still filming camera and take shelter under a bridge in Central Park as air raid sirens begin to blare in the distance, indicating that the "Hammerdown" protocol is about to be put into effect. Rob and Beth quickly take turns leaving their last testimonies on camera, just as numerous explosions occur outside and the monster can be heard screaming. The bridge collapses and, as debris covers the camera, Rob and Beth can be heard professing their love to one another before another explosion occurs.

The film cuts footage of Rob and Beth's Coney Island date. In a panning shot of the beach an object can be seen falling from the sky and landing in the ocean.

After the credits roll, a garbled radio sound clip can be heard. When played backwards, the audio says, "It's still alive".[7]

Cast

Further information: List of characters in the Cloverfield universe

Cast notes

To prevent the leaking of plot information, instead of auditioning the actors with scenes from the film, scripts from Abrams' previous productions were used, such as television series Alias and Lost. Some scenes were also written specifically for the audition process, not intended for use in the film. Despite not being told the premise of the film, Lizzy Caplan stated that she accepted a role in Cloverfield solely because she was a fan of the Abrams-produced television series 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".[8]

Production

Development

The poster for Escape from New York (1981) inspired the scene of the severed head of the Statue of Liberty in Cloverfield

J. J. Abrams conceived of 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."[9][10] Abrams pays homage to King Kong approximately 67 minutes into the movie, just after the helicopter crashes. When the video of the camera breaks up, a quick scene from Coney Island is seen. This is followed by several still frames from the original King Kong movie. There are two other still frames in "pre-recorded" sequences, one from the movie Them! and one from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms - these two movies are also cited in the credits.

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' company, Bad Robot Productions.[11] The visual effects producer was Chantal Feghali

The severed head of the Statue of Liberty was inspired by the poster of the 1981 film Escape from New York, which had shown the head lying in the streets in New York. According to Reeves, "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'."[12]

The film was titled Cloverfield from the beginning, but the title changed throughout production before it was finalized as the original title. Matt Reeves explained that the title was changed frequently 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.[13] And people always found out what we were doing!" The director said that "Cloverfield" was the government's case designation for the events caused by the monster, comparing the titling to that of the Manhattan Project. "And it's not a project per se. It's the way that this case has been designated. That's why that is on the trailer, and it becomes clearer in the film. It's how they refer to this phenomenon [or] this case", said the director.[14] The film's final title, Cloverfield, is the name of the exit Abrams takes to his Santa Monica office.[15][13]

One final title, Greyshot, was proposed before the movie was officially titled Cloverfield. The name Greyshot is taken from the archway that the two survivors take shelter under at the end of the movie. Director Matt Reeves said that it was decided not to change the title to Greyshot because the film was already so well known as Cloverfield.[16]

Filming

The casting process was carried out in secret, with no script being sent out to candidates. With production estimated to have a budget of $30 million, filming began in mid-June in New York.[11] One cast member indicated that the film would look like it cost $150 million, despite producers not casting recognizable and expensive actors.[8] Filmmakers used the Sony CineAlta F23 high-definition video camera to film nearly all of the New York exterior scenes.[17] Filming took place on Coney Island, with scenes shot at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and the B&B Carousel.[18] Some interior shots were filmed on a soundstage at Downey, California, Bloomingdale's in the movie was actually filmed in an emptied Robinsons-May store that was under reconstruction in Arcadia, California, and the outside scenes of Sephora and the electronics store were filmed in Downtown Los Angeles.[19]

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

The film was shot and edited in a cinéma vérité style,[20] to look like it was filmed 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 filmed a third of the movie and almost half of it made it into the film.[21] 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."[22]

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.[16]

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 Hammerdown bombing.[16]

Creature design

Main article: Clover (creature)

Visual main effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his company Tippett Studio were enlisted to develop the visual effects for Cloverfield.[23] Because the visual effects were incorporated after filming, cast members had to react to a non-existent creature during scenes, only being familiar with early conceptual renderings of the beast.[24] Artist Neville Page designed the monster, thoroughly creating a biological rationale for the creature, even if many of his ideas like "elongated, and articulated external esophagus" would not show up on screen.[25] The key idea behind the monster was that he was an immature creature suffering from "separation anxiety". This recalls real-life elephants who get frightened and lash out at the circus, because the director felt "there's nothing scarier than something huge that's spooked".[26]

Marketing

Filmmakers decided to create a teaser trailer that would be a surprise in the light of commonplace media saturation, which they put together during the preparation stage of the production process. The teaser was then used as a basis for the film itself. Paramount Pictures encouraged the teaser to be released without a title attached, and the Motion Picture Association of America approved the move.[22] As Transformers showed high tracking numbers before its release in July 2007, the studio attached the teaser trailer for Cloverfield that showed the release date of January 18, 2008 but not the title.[11] A second trailer was released on November 16, 2007 which was attached to Beowulf confirming the title.[27]

The studio had kept knowledge of the project secret from the online community, a cited rarity due to the presence of scoopers that follow upcoming films. The controlled release of information on the film has been observed as a risky strategy, which could succeed like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or disappoint like Snakes on a Plane (2006), the latter of which had generated online hype but failed to attract large audiences. Chad Hartigan of Exhibitor Relations Co. saw several issues with the potential of the film, including a lack of major stars, the underwhelming performance of Godzilla-style films in America, and the film's slated release in January, considered a "dumping ground for bad films".[28]

Pre-release plot speculation

The sudden appearance of the untitled trailer for Cloverfield fueled media speculation over the film's plot. USA Today reported the possibilities of the film being based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, a live-action adaptation of Voltron (based on a mis-interpretation of the trailer's line "It's alive!" as "It's a lion!"), a new film about Godzilla, or a spin-off of the TV show Lost.[29] The Star Ledger also reported the possibility of the film being based on Lovecraft lore or Godzilla.[30] The Guardian reported the possibility of a Lost spin-off,[31] while Time Out reported that the film was about an alien called "The Parasite".[32] IGN also backed the possibility of that premise, with The Parasite rumored to be a working title for the film.[14] Online, Slusho and Colossus had been discussed as other possible titles.[33] Entertainment Weekly also disputed reports that the film would be about a parasite or a colossal Asian robot such as Voltron.[34]

Visitors of the website Ain't It Cool News have pointed out 9/11 allusions based on the destruction in New York City such as the decapitated Statue of Liberty. The film has also drawn alternate reality game enthusiasts that have followed other viral marketing campaigns like those set up for the TV series Lost, the video game Halo 2, the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero, and the newest Batman film The Dark Knight. 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,[35] and the Comic-Con teaser poster for the film.[28] A popular piece of fan art posited that the monster was a mutated Humpback Whale.[26]

Viral tie-ins

File:Cloverfield shots.JPG
Photos on the 1-18-08.com viral marketing website

Puzzle websites containing Lovecraftian elements, such as Ethan Haas Was Right, were originally reported to be connected to the film.[29][31] 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.[36] At the site, a collection of time-coded photos are provided to visitors to piece together a series of events and interpret their meanings; the pictures can also be flipped over – by repeatedly and rapidly moving the mouse side to side. Eventually, www.cloverfieldmovie.com was created. This was the actual site where a trailer was shown and it gives you the number 33287 to text cloverfield to on your mobile phone for 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 receive material on Iron Man, Indiana Jones 4, Kung fu Panda and The Love Guru). [37]

As part of the viral marketing campaign, the drink Slusho! has served as a tie-in. The drink had already appeared in producer Abrams' previous creation, the TV series Alias.[38] Viral websites for Slusho! and a Japanese drilling company named Tagruato (タグルアト, Taguruato) were launched to add to the mythology of Cloverfield.[5] When Cloverfield was hosted at Comic-Con 2007, gray Slusho! T-shirts were distributed to attendees.[39] Fans who had registered at the Slusho! website for Cloverfield received e-mails of fictional sonar images before the film's release that showed a deep-sea creature heading toward Manhattan.[40]

Producer Bryan 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."[5] Director Matt 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."[38]

Merchandise

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) is being released by Japanese publisher Kadokawa Shoten.[41] The story focuses on a Japanese high school student named Kishin Aiba, who somehow bears a connection to the monster.[42]

Based on the successful opening weekend of Cloverfield in theaters, Hasbro began accepting orders for a 14-inch (36 cm) collectible toy figure of the monster with authentic sound[43] and its parasites to be shipped to fans by September 30, 2008.[44]

Music and sound

Untitled

Due to its presentation as footage from a consumer digital recorder, Cloverfield has no film score, with the exception of the composition "Roar! (Cloverfield Overture)" by Michael Giacchino that plays over the end credits. Similarities between "Roar!" and the music of Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube have been noted, and it has been suggested that Giacchino's overture is a tribute to Ifukube's work,[45][46] which was confirmed by Matt Reeves in the DVD's commentary track[16]. The sound track was supervised by William Files[47] and Douglas Murray[48] at Skywalker Sound.

Rob's Party Mix or Cloverfield Mix is a collection of the music played in the opening party sequences of the film that was released exclusively on Apple's iTunes store on January 22, 2008 in lieu of a traditional soundtrack album.[49] The Cloverfield score, "Roar! (Cloverfield Overture)" by Michael Giacchino that plays over the end credits[50] is not featured on the album, as it is the mixtape played at the party and is not the official soundtrack of the film. This album was distributed to guests at a Cloverfield premiere party held at the Dark Room in New York City on January 17, 2008.[51]

A complete soundtrack release of all the music in the film, including Giacchino's "Roar!" end title piece, has now also been released exclusively on iTunes; it has not been officially released in retail stores. A CD entitled Rob's Party Mix comes packaged in a special edition of Cloverfield made available for sale in Canadian Wal-Mart stores beginning on April 22, 2008.

Track listing
No.TitleArtistLength
1."West Coast"Coconut Records3:32
2."Taper Jean Girl"Kings of Leon3:05
3."Beautiful Girls"Sean Kingston4:01
4."Do I Have Your Attention"The Blood Arm3:35
5."Got Your Moments"Scissors for Lefty3:11
6."Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)"Parliament5:46
7."19-2000"Gorillaz3:27
8."The Underdog"Spoon3:42
9."Pistol of Fire"Kings of Leon2:20
10."Disco Lies"Moby3:22
11."Do the Whirlwind"Architecture in Helsinki4:39
12."Grown So Ugly"The Black Keys2:24
13."Four Winds"Bright Eyes4:16
14."The Ride"Joan As Policewoman3:09
15."Seventeen Years"Ratatat4:26
16."Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games"Of Montreal4:15
17."Fuzz" (ファズ)Mucc4:47

Reception

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 $40,058,229 on its opening weekend, making it the most successful January release to date. Worldwide, it has grossed $170,533,544, making it the first movie in 2008 to gross over $100 million.[52] The film was mostly praised by critics. As of April 27, 2008, review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 77% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 173 reviews.[53] According to Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 64, based on 37 reviews.[54]

Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle calls the film "the most intense and original creature feature I've seen in my adult moviegoing life [...] a pure-blood, grade A, exultantly 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".[55] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter called it "chillingly effective", 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".[56] 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".[57] Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the film 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".[58]

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".[59] Scott Foundas of LA Weekly was critical of the film's use of scenes reminiscent of the September 11, 2001 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".[60] 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."[20] 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".[61] 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.[50] 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".

The movie was nominated for four awards: It was nominated for two Saturn awards for "Best supporting actress (Lizzy Caplan)" and "Best science fiction film". It was nominated for two Golden Trailer Awards for "Best Thriller for trailer#1" and "Most original trailer".[citation needed] The film went on to win a Saturn award for "Best science fiction film".

Shaky camerawork

Sign at an AMC theater warning customers

The film's shaky camera style of cinematography, dubbed "Queasy-Cam" by Roger Ebert, has led some who view it inside dark movie theaters to experience vertigo, causing nausea and a temporary loss of balance. Audience members prone to migraines have cited the film as a trigger. Some theaters showing the film like AMC Theatres posted warnings, informing viewers about the filming style of Cloverfield while other theatres like Pacific Theatres verbally warned guests at the box office about experiencing motion sickness upon viewing the film and what to do in the event a guest had to step out. [62]

It also influences the encoding of the video and can cause compression artifacts.[63]

DVD

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 has 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 steelbook edition is only available from HMV, while Play.com offers exclusive cover artwork. The HMV-exclusive steelbook contains two discs.

The DVD includes two alternate endings, which vary only slightly. The first alternate 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 alternate 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, Matt 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 symbolizing the end of the tape.[64]

A Blu-ray edition was released on June 3, 2008.[65] It includes a "Special Investigation Mode," as well as all the bonus features of the 2-disc DVD in HD. The film has grossed $29,045,190 in dvd sales, bringing its total film gross to $199,578,734.[66][67]

Sequel

At the premiere of the film, Matt Reeves talked about possibilities on how a sequel will turn out if the film succeeds.[68] According to Reeves, "While we were on set making the film we talked about the possibilities and directions of how a sequel can go. The fun of this movie was that it might not have been the only movie being made that night, there might be another movie! In today's day and age of people filming their lives on their camera phones and Handycams, uploading it to YouTube... That was kind of exciting thinking about that."[69]

File:GuyFilmingBridgeCloverfield.jpg
Image of the "guy" filming on the side of the bridge, as stated by Reeves

In another interview, Reeves states:

There's a moment on the Brooklyn Bridge, and there was a guy filming something on the side of the bridge, and Hud sees him filming and he turns over and he sees the ship that's been capsized and sees the headless Statue of Liberty, and then he turns back and this guy's briefly filming him. In my mind that was two movies intersecting for a brief moment, and I thought there was something interesting in the idea that this incident happened and there are so many different points of view, and there are several different movies at least happening that evening and we just saw one piece of another.[26]

Reeves also points out that the end scene on Coney Island shows something falling into the ocean in the background (pointed out by fans to be in the far right from the view out of the ferris wheel, a bit left of a boat sitting in the water seen falling just as the camera beeps), but didn't give out details.[26] Producers Bryan Burk and J. J. Abrams also announced their thoughts to Entertainment Weekly about possible sequel(s). According to Bryan Burk, "The creative team has fleshed out an entire backstory which, if we're lucky, we might get to explore in future films".[70]

Also, Abrams states that he does not want to rush into the development of the sequel right away because of the first film's success, instead he wants to create a sequel that is true to the previous film.[70]

At the end of January, Matt Reeves entered early talks with Paramount Pictures to direct a sequel to Cloverfield, which would likely be filmed before Reeves's other project, The Invisible Woman.[71] Reeves now said:

The idea of doing something so differently is exhilarating. We hope that it created a movie experience that is different. The thing about doing a sequel is that I think we all really feel protective of that experience. The key here will be if we can find something that is compelling enough and that is different enough for us to do, then it will probably be worth doing. Obviously it also depends on how Cloverfield does worldwide and all of those things too, but really, for us creatively, we just want to find something that would be another challenge.[72]

In an interview with IGN, J. J. Abrams stated that they are still in talks with Paramount. Abrams thought (in his opinion) that it would be fun to work on something different. Matt Reeves and Drew Goddard have drawn up different stories for the sequel, but Abrams is only considering the idea of continuing Cloverfield. Paramount is still trying to seal the deal for the sequel.

In an interview with "Attack of the Show", J. J. Abrams had stated that a sequel had not been finalized yet, though Matt Reeves and Paramount are still in talks. In a separate interview, Matt Reeves had stated the same thing. In the same interview between Abrams and "AOTS", Abrams had said that they might abandon the filming style, stating that he and the rest of the crew would like to try something new.

According to J. J. Abrams in another interview, he has said "We're talking about it with Paramount still... but the truth is there's another idea that I'd rather do with the same people than do a sequel of Cloverfield."

At the San Diego Comic-Con, J.J. Abrams said "There will be a Cloverfield 2...but it won't be a sequel. It will be something "surprising". [73].

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  7. ^ Reversed Soundclip
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  73. ^ Cloverfield Clues
Wikiquote has quotations related to Cloverfield.
Awards
Preceded by Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
2007 		Most recent

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