If there’s anything that JJ Abrams has learned from the phenomenal success of Lost, it’s that everyone loves a good mystery. And when it comes to good mysteries, there’s no medium quite like the Internet for encouraging ever-increasing volumes of theories, debates and out-and-out flame wars (see 4815162342, as a prime example).
Well, Abrams is at it again with his mysterious new Cloverfield project, the teaser trailer of which was packaged by Paramount with the Transformers showings in the US. Unfortunately, the trailer itself is nowhere to be found online (Paramount issued cease-and-desists to all the sites that were carrying the videoclip), but that hasn’t stopped the amount of speculation from reaching massive heights. My favorite film blog, TheMovieBlog, posited that Cloverfield actually might be the much-anticipated American remake of Joon-Ho Bong’s fantastic monster movie The Host. As more information has become available, however, the likelihood of that has diminished somewhat.
Several Cloverfield-related websites have sprung up over the past two weeks to keep the buzz machine happy, the first of which was the enigmatic 1-18-08.com, which people are assuming is Cloverfield’s release date and shows nothing more than two photographs that you can drag around. Then there’s the interactive EthanHaasWasRight.com, which contains some simple puzzles that users must solve in order to see the site’s hidden cinematics. And finally, there’s an EthanHaasWasWrong blog, which acts as a sort of response to the aforementioned Flash site.
All of these items together begin to form a basic, albeit vague, picture of what Cloverfield probably is.
- It’s an apocalyptic sci-fi thriller.
- It’s got a heavy emphasis on prophesy (see the source code on EthanHaasWasRight.com for some Nostradamus-esque ramblings)
- It’s involves a big monster attacking New York.
- There are two opposing forces jockeying for control — with Ethan Haas’s ramblings being the main point of contention.
More info on the Cloverfield production here.