Cloverfield - Preview, US reaction and US record
Preview by Jack Foley
CLOVERFIELD, the hotly-anticipated “creature feature” from Lost creator JJ Abrams, has become the first monster hit of 2008 in the US, debuting with $41 million and setting a record for January opening.
According to early studio estimates Sunday (January 20, 2008), Paramount’s tale of a giant reptile on the rampage in New York City easily beat the $35.9 million opening of the Star Wars special edition in 1997.
Cloverfield was deemed a high concept risk for many reasons – but it has emerged triumphant thanks to a clever marketing campaign and some genuine quality.
It features a cast of unknowns and is shot using a hand-held video camera, which captures the mayhem as the creature tears through the city.
A cryptic marketing campaign on the web began last year with a clever teaser trailer and continued by sending young moviegoers on a scavenger hunt to decode clues about the movie’s plot.
The film’s title was not even confirmed until shortly before its release, having been known as Untitled JJ Abrams project for most of the time.
But Rob Moore, vice-chairman of Paramount, was delighted with the film’s performance, stating: “As we started it, we asked, how do we draw people in and have them say, ‘Hey, I want to know more about that. That looked cool, that looked intriguing.
“Then fortunately, they delivered a movie that was as unique and engaging as people had hoped from the marketing campaign,” he told the Hollywood Reporter.
Critics in America were equally pleased with the results of months of rumour and speculation, awarding the film mostly positive reviews.
The Boston Globe stated: “Cloverfield captures the chronic self-absorption of the Facebook generation with breathless, cleverly recycled media savvy, and then it stomps that self-absorption to death. These days, that’s entertainment.”
While Rober Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times stated: “An effective film, deploying its special effects well and never breaking the illusion that it is all happening as we see it.”
The San Francisco Chronicle, meanwhile, wrote: “A terrific movie, filled with spectacle and a surprising amount of humour, which makes up for its lack of terror or emotional impact.”
And USA Today declared: “A surprisingly gripping thriller. Employing a pseudo-documentary handheld camera style, it offers a fresh spin on the monster movie genre.”
But the final word goes to Entertainment Weekly which concluded that Cloverfield is “a surreptitiously subversive, stylistically clever little gem of an entertainment”.
The film opens in UK cinemas on February 1, 2008 – and trust us, it’s worth the wait.
b>Watch footage from Cloverfield or check out our b>photo gallery