Cloverfield Trailer Was Filmed Before The Script Was Finished


The Cloverfield teaser trailer, which premiered before Transformers, was created before the script or filming was finished, says Matt Reeves.


Cloverfield director Matt Reeves revealed that the first teaser was released well before the script and filming were finished. The film was a found-footage creature feature — à la The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla — that saw New York terrorized by an enormous, unknown monster. The teaser trailer had a coveted promo spot, premiering in theaters for Transformers in 2007. It opened on a going away party disrupted by a thunderous roaring sound accompanied by foreboding tremors. The film opened to generally positive reviews and made $172 million worldwide against a $25 million budget.

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Speaking to Collider for the film’s 15th anniversary, director Matt Reeves revealed that Cloverfield was still in the early stages of production when the teaser was created. He said he wasn’t sure what the movie was yet, as they had only shot a week and a half by the time the trailer was released and had an unfinished script while it was being made. With that in mind, the teaser garnered a lot of attraction for the movie, putting pressure on the filmmaker to deliver. Reeves described the experience as a weird, high-wire act. Read what Reeves had to say about the Cloverfield experience below:

Well, I mean that was the thing, is that the idea from the beginning was they knew that we could have this prime spot on the Transformer’s release. So the idea was if we could put together the trailer to have it ready for then– and the weird thing was that the trailer was, for us, it was [a] twofold thing. Well, it was threefold. One was, it was a trailer that would be on Transformers and everyone thought, “Well that’s probably going to be huge.” That would be an amazing spot. But the other thing was that it was actually a test to see if we could make the movie. Because it was a Handicam movie that was handheld with VFX. And at the time, the VFX people were saying, “I think you’ve got to shoot it on a steady cam, and we’ll add the shake later.”And I was like, “That’s never going to work. The audience is going to know, it’s going to look totally inauthentic. That’s terrible.” I was like, “We have to do this handheld.” And so that was a test to see if we could do that. And the other thing was, our budget was so tight that we were like, “Well gee, we’re going to do the head of the Statue of Liberty. This has to be the shot from the movie.” But the movie wasn’t written yet. So it was this crazy thing where that moment was realized, but the rest of the shot was not even conceptualized. And so what ended up happening was we go, “Okay, so here’s what we have to do.” We [had] to shoot it, so we could do it and then hide a cut so that once the script [was] done, and we’re actually shooting, we could continue the shot because we wouldn’t be able to afford to do that shot within the budget that we had. We borrowed some of marketing’s money to use it for the movie. So it was a crazy process.And then when the trailer came out, I remember going to see it, it was the 4th of July. And I remember going to the Cinerama Dome and going to watch the trailer. And watching the reaction going like, “Wow, this is so amazing.” It was so exciting. And then my first feeling was that I was thrilled, and then suddenly I was like, “Wait, this is horrifying because we’ve shot a week and a half on this movie, I don’t know what the movie is and everybody else is going, ‘what is the movie?’” And I’m like, “Wait, I hope they like what this movie is because we don’t even know what the movie is fully yet.” I mean, we had a script, but we were shooting very, very early on.So the whole thing was very, very unusual. I would say that it’s probably one of the few experiences that could be described in that way. I mean, to make a trailer for a movie that you haven’t shot yet, that hadn’t actually been written yet, and have it come out on Transformers and have the whole world react and then to know, “Oh God, now we have to make the movie.” That’s a pretty weird high-wire act.

Related: Cloverfield 2’s Monster Has A Godzilla Vs. Kong Problem


Matt Reeves Reflects On Cloverfield 15 Years Later

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As Cloverfield’s 15th anniversary has arrived — the film came out January 16, 2008 — director Reeves has opened up about the film and its success. He even elicited a positive reaction from the legendary Steven Spielberg, who was genuinely scared by the creature feature. Reeves found this out on the set of Star Trek, where Spielberg was visiting and asked for Reeves personally: a big reward for a film that was rushed throughout production. In an interview with Screen Rant, Reeves said that, 12 weeks before shooting, he and screenwriter Drew Goddard — who would go on to write and direct the successful Cabin in the Woods — only had an outline to work with. Because of this process, Reeves and Goddard became friends, as they were both thrown in the thick of it with little to work with, and they came out victorious.

As for sequels, Cloverfield technically has two. 10 Cloverfield Lane came out in 2016 and, in its finale, suddenly revealed itself as being in the same universe. The Cloverfield Paradox is similarly connected to Cloverfield. Connecting the dots in the Cloverfield universe with the three films already out is hard, but the connections are there. As for a direct sequel, Reeves has teased the possibility, though he is selective about it.

The director so far is on the record stating that he’ll never say never to a direct Cloverfield sequel if the right story and opportunity present themselves. However, it’s hard to see the director returning to the franchise soon, as he has his plate full with his success from The Batman alone. And with his experience with big-budget films, production details will likely be kept close to the chest. In his words, talking about Cloverfield is like talking about Fight Club: he won’t talk about it.

Next: Cloverfield’s Original Plan Would Have Lost A Great Ending Moment

Source: Collider



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