"Cloverfield" a monster hit after first weekend.
The monster movie written by Drew Goddard pulled down $41 million in its first weekend, which is well above its $25 million budget.
Its internet marketing strategy has been called one reason behind its success. The opening weekend could be a new record for any movie opening during the Martin Luther King holiday.
January 20 2008
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You could totally tell that Drew wrote it. :) The dialogue was very much like something you might hear in Buffy! :)
xerox | January 20, 17:17 CET
chazman | January 20, 17:48 CET
It's basically proof that a proper marketing strategy with a clear message and target demographic works. Web + monsters + young people = $$$ for the win.
'SNAKES ON A PLANE' is often cited as an example as to why web marketing doesn't work. That's just wrong. That didn't work because the movie was actually just shit, and the marketing was badly done.
This actually tried a lot of the things they looked at with Serenity, except they deliberately didn't centralise a community around it - they let it naturally form across over sites which increased outside chatter. Plus they put a lot more money into it (a few of the fake news viral marketing video clips they made had an oil rig sinking the background...) and kept the faith. (3500 prints opening weekend, which Serenity was originally pegged as, until Universal scaled it back).
[ edited by gossi on 2008-01-20 23:54 ]
gossi | January 20, 17:53 CET
rbt | January 20, 18:03 CET
cabri | January 20, 18:13 CET
Eric G | January 20, 18:21 CET
The same was done with the Blair Witch Project. Which is fitting, since it's exactly the same film.
crossoverman | January 20, 19:27 CET
Also, BLAIR WITCH was shown in advance, at many film festivals, sci-fi conventions, and advanced previews.
I really dug CLOVERFIELD. My wife had to leave early because she got motion sickness from the handheld camera work, but I went back the next day and saw the rest. Really well done, really fun, really dark.
And they passed out vomit bags beforehand, which I think is a moviegoing first for me.
Brian Lynch | January 20, 19:38 CET
newcj | January 20, 19:55 CET
Out of Objects | January 20, 20:14 CET
[ edited by dulce_serenidad on 2008-01-21 20:37 ]
dulce_serenidad | January 20, 20:23 CET
Oh dear god! How I hate unplanned sequels! :facepalm:
[ edited by dulce_serenidad on 2008-01-21 20:39 ]
dulce_serenidad | January 20, 20:26 CET
Buffyfantic | January 20, 20:33 CET
Someone who says that could not have seen it. The fact that it was supposed to be a video someone shot which they found is the only connection (and even that was done much better in cloverfield).
I saw it twice this weekend.
To me it was nothing like anything I've seen before. I keep telling people that its more of a ride then a movie. I held tightly to my arm rests for a lot of the show. Definitely something that needs to be seen on the big screen.
[ edited by ssick on 2008-01-21 06:49 ]
ssick | January 20, 21:10 CET
electricspacegirl | January 20, 21:47 CET
Plus you know there were people who went just to see if there would be a Star Trek teaser. Never underestimate what a trekkie will go through. Wait a minute I forgot I was talking to the Browncoats. Nevermind, let me go put on my Joss Whedon is my master Tshirt and enjoy my glass house. And yeah i wanted to see the Trek teaser too, I won't lie. Although the Doomsday trailer blew it away.
theMidnighter | January 20, 21:53 CET
cabri | January 20, 22:12 CET
While I think his complaint that Cloverfield is exactly like Blair Witch is a wee overstated (well, okay, considerably overstated), the fact remains that he's not the only one who found himself not entirely loving the film...although in my case, it was more a case of mild disappointment. theMidnighter, if you really want to know the answer to your question, you can check out my answer on the same Ultimate Drew thread. You can't miss it...it's invisotexted. And it's long enough that I'm not retyping the whole thing again.
As for a sequel...no. Just no. Some movies weren't made for sequels. A lot of those movies have sequels anyway, and while a few of then are even good, I would happily trade all the good ones (with maybe one or two exceptions) to wipe the bad ones out of existence. Cloverfield only has a couple real routes for a sequel. Basically, it's either "follow the monster on another rampage" or "center on a different group of people on the same night." Either way, it'll be hard to avoid that warmed-over, more-of-the-same feeling, and I would then have to echo crossoverman and start saying that Cloverfield 2 was just a shadow of another movie.
BAFfler | January 20, 23:29 CET
Oh, how I wish they had done that at the screening I went to. And by vomit bags, I mean Dramamine.
MindEclipse | January 20, 23:35 CET
Oh, and here's a handy how-to page that informs you how to add HTML links, quotes, and SuperInvisoText to give your comment 25% extra sheen and lustre.
I'm looking forward to catching this (and at least a dozen other flicks currently at-large) at the earliest opportunity. Drew is, truly, Ultimate. Never did see the Blair Witch thingy (I was an early victim of the overhype) but, as I believe the BAFfler implied on another thread, if you've seen Cannibal Holocaust once, you may well have seen all the hand-held faux-verite documentaries you'll ever want to see. And that's praise, not criticism.
SoddingNancyTribe | January 21, 00:17 CET
1. We follow one of the news crews around.... it starts out with stuff from a few days earlier that foreshadows the monster.... then we see through the camera on the night it attacks,,, it would look a lot better because it would be more professional and the camera man would know what he's doing from experience. We'd learn a lot more about the creature and see more of it! :) But there still wouldn't be enough information given to ruin the mystique.
2. It would be a traditional film with multiple cameras that the actors aren't aware of. It would tell of the events leading up to the movie with government officials or scientists as the main characters.
3. A fake documentary about the events of the movie. With multiple little clips of other people who had their cellphones handy and interviews with people who survived. They could also poke fun at all the different theories that people had about the movie by having people claim it was a giant robot or it was a giant whale in the interviews. It would also be able to tie in all the viral websites really well.
I think the third idea could work really well, but thats just me... :)
xerox | January 21, 00:18 CET
xerox | January 21, 00:43 CET
Agree with ya there, ssick!
And to top it off..the end credits and Michael Giachinno's dead-on Ikufube overture. Don't be too hasty to leave the theater.
pjAngel | January 21, 00:49 CET
Storyteller | January 21, 00:50 CET
The Blair Witch Project, as I recall, (and I've not seen it since I first saw it at the theater) at the end, became unclear as to who was operating the camera, which might've been intentional, but, to me it was confusing, and it lessened the effect. I'm going to take another look at it, but, by the end, I was so confused as to what was happening, that while the general implications were scary and suspenseful, it wasn't as effective in the end, as Cloverfield. Also, I didn't care at all about the protagonists, and, I didn't feel all that sorry for them, as they'd mostly gotten themselves into their mess. They weren't very sympathetic to me. The characters of Cloverfield, they were in the middle of something they couldn't control, which happens to all of us, and is much more identifiable on a human level. When stuff like that happens, all we can do is try to survive, and hope/try for the survival of those we love.
k8cre8 | January 21, 01:01 CET
It's definitely not one I could see often (motion-sickness issues and so forth), but I certainly will see it again.
deird | January 21, 01:08 CET
Saw it tonight. Like some are saying, it's a ride of a movie. Lotta fun (if tension and a whole lotta speculating are your thing. More on that later).
I found the acting serviceable for the most part. A couple of the cast members were very good. I guess where believability faltered a bit for me (yes, I know it's about a giant something-or-other to begin with) was when so many of the friends decided to follow Rob to save Beth. Can't see that happening if that shit were going down in real life, but without it I guess there wouldn't have been as compelling a movie...just seeing them trying to escape the city, I guess, wouldn't have provided the same excitement, especially since it was presented that they could've easily gotten out when they ran into the army.
It frustrated that there were little to no answers about what was going on, but that'll just keep me having fun speculating and I'll probably visit the IMDB message boards after posting this (proceed with caution when it comes to those).
Amused me that the movie still didn't rule out any of the three major "what is it!" theories that were floating around before release--sure it might be an alien, sure it might be the result of a virus (that infected a whale, apparently!) or mutation, and sure it still might also be a monster from the depths. No conclusives, although Hudd leaned toward the ocean monster explanation.
Kris | January 21, 01:08 CET
xerox, about your ideas...I don't mean to sound down on you, because I agree that those could all (in the right hands) be legitimate possibilities for sequels, but earlier, I said that it might leave me with a warmed-over feeling if the sequel just "center[ed] on a different group of people on the same night." Let's see what we have here:
1. "We follow one of the news crews around...." In other words, we center on a different group of people on the same night. The advantages of professional footage aside, it would be the same rampage.
2. "...would tell of the events leading up to the movie with government officials or scientists as the main characters." In other words, we center on a different group of people on the nights leading up to the night. And it would probably be pretty boring, because nobody ever knows Godzilla monsters are there until they start rampaging. That's Rule #2. Rule #1 is, Godzilla monsters are born to rampage.
3. "A fake documentary about the events of the movie. With multiple little clips of other people who had their cellphones handy and interviews with people who survived." In other words, we center on massive numbers of different people on the same night and the nights after. I might watch this one, but only if it was called Cloverfield 2: Night of a Thousand Huds. (I invisotexted the title because I don't want to take the chance of someone thinking there was a spoiler in there, although I'm pretty sure there isn't.)
BAFfler | January 21, 01:27 CET
I liked the movie. It didn't blow me away emotionally--I didn't think there was really any character development to speak of, but I don't think it really needed any, either. It was just very visceral; a great new way to pull off a monster movie.
And, not to spoil anything, but I thought that the movie did indicate the origin of the thing. In the next-to-last shot, the panoramic view of Coney Island, on the right side of the screen, something falls from the sky off in the distance and hits the water just before the camera swings back to Rob and Beth. I was the only one in my group of five who picked up on it, though, so I suppose I could have misinterpreted!
ShimShamSam | January 21, 01:32 CET
FWIW, I really enjoyed this movie. Hell of a ride! For something that could have just been more ripping off of other movies, it still did it in a clever and fun way. I expect nothing less from a Whedon alum and the dude that created Alias.
Hoppy | January 21, 01:32 CET
BAFfler: I worked at San Fran's largest indie vid store for 2+ years. Watched a lot of weird sh*t in that time. I absolutely concur in your caveats regarding CH. I don't think I would actually recommend it to anyone. But for those with a strong stomach, it is a very well-made film. (And not just lurid excess, as the title would suggest.)
SoddingNancyTribe | January 21, 01:38 CET
cabri | January 21, 02:14 CET
BAFfler | January 21, 03:02 CET
Hah. I found myself, while waiting for the bus home, looking at buildings and thinking, "What would it look like it something really freaking huge came crawling over the top of that?"
It frustrated that there were little to no answers about what was going on
That's one of my top three favorite things about the movie.
@theonetruebix | January 21, 03:49 CET
It would be interesting even to have people record an audio commentary track in the form of government officials discussing the case designate Cloverfield.
@theonetruebix | January 21, 04:03 CET
Doesn't even need to be a sequel. "Cloverfield 1.1: Another View" would be just as cool. So many possibilities...
In short, best monster movie in ages.
RayHill | January 21, 05:57 CET
Really want to see it, but won't open here for another two weeks.
Numfar PTB | January 21, 06:40 CET
I thought I'd be one of those to be made sick by the movie, because i can never watch an Imax movie without getting sick - but I had no problem with it.
The Drew Goddard humor was there, but I really hope there isn't a sequel. I'd rather see him (or others) work on something else original.
[ edited by Nebula1400 on 2008-01-21 16:50 ]
Nebula1400 | January 21, 08:00 CET
Does this imply the monster did get blown all to heck, or is it just a bunch of remnants of the whales, etc., the monster destroyed on its way to NYC?
It's been driving me nuts.
QuanticoMVP | January 21, 08:20 CET
I liked it a lot. Clever premise freshly done, AMAZING continuity. Very real feel.
And I'm looking to everyone who expresses horror over 9-11 references to demand that we go back and edit out all references to Nazi's, holocausts, racial purity, and Final Solutions, in every motion picture and TV show since WWII.
filops | January 21, 09:46 CET
The last half of the movie is where all my quibbles come in. I think my least favorite thing was Marlena... exploding (?) after being bitten. I felt like that wasn't really necessary. The point of this movie was people, not expanding a mythology of something that we don't really know anything about. (Sidebar: I don't dig them showing something falling into the water at the end of the movie. I would prefer we know nothing about the monster whatsoever.)
Kudos to Drew, though. Between his words and the acting (which, I would think, was pretty difficult), I think they pulled off a uniquely cool movie.
leafblown | January 21, 10:05 CET
filops | January 21, 10:37 CET
zeitgeist | January 21, 10:56 CET
OzLady | January 21, 11:32 CET
fillionflan | January 21, 12:01 CET
sungoesdark | January 21, 12:11 CET
The characters were made of cardboard, the motivations and plot were idiotic and made no sense whatsoever the entire way through, the acting was beyond terrible, every single good scare was directly ripped off from Jurassic Park and its sequels, of course the camerawork (it may be intentional, but that doesn't make it commendable), the dialogue was cringeworthy, etc. etc. This movie was pure torture to sit through from beginning to end. Some of the longest 90 minutes of my life.
Like I said, the only positive thing was the actress who played Lily. So very, very pretty. :-)
Storyteller | January 21, 12:23 CET
zeitgeist | January 21, 12:33 CET
danregal | January 21, 12:39 CET
[ edited by phlebotinin on 2008-01-21 19:11 ]
phlebotinin | January 21, 13:03 CET
(Kudos to Goddard for calling him Hud, though - Hud? Heads up display! Heh. Great name for a camera man!)
crossoverman | January 21, 15:24 CET
Tina | January 21, 18:35 CET
If so anything to do with the movie?
renegade | January 21, 18:40 CET
crossoverman | January 21, 19:12 CET
I just added a url to my profile
I don't see it?
[ edited by theonetruebix on 2008-01-22 04:36 ]
@theonetruebix | January 21, 22:34 CET
JesterInACast | January 21, 22:57 CET
Tina | January 21, 23:35 CET
Huh. Marlena was the one I couldn't take my eyes off of. Simply stunning.
electricspacegirl | January 22, 01:02 CET