Last night I was talking to CHUD’s box office guru Andre Dellamorte about Cloverfield, the JJ Abrams produced giant monster movie. I had recently heard that the last FX shots for the film were due yesterday, and with the movie only a couple of weeks away, I was figuring that screenings would have to start soon. I imagine I won’t be in the first wave of screening invites – you may have noticed that a number of non-CHUD sites have been doing interviews with the film’s director and stars. I don’t think this site is high on Bad Robot’s priorities after I blew the trailer reveal and some of the other stuff I have written about the film.
Anyway, Dre and I were talking about the film’s opening and what effect the viral marketing would have on it. My thought is that it will have none – the viral junk is just about keeping your base activated, keeping the core involved with the film. What’s going to get Joe Jackass Who Talks On His Cellphone In A Movie Theater out to see Cloverfield is going to be the TV commercials. Like the one that Movieweb, home of Nick’s new nemesis Paulington J Christensen III, now has. And which we’ve embedded below. Hey, they still get the traffic.
The commercial includes some more footage from the movie that we haven’t seen before, and all of a sudden I almost find myself on the side of the goofballs who claim that one guy is saying "I saw it, it’s a lion! It’s huge!" Watch the commercial and go over the images with a fine-toothed comb in a YouTube video sure to get you mad pussy, or ponder if this is going to be enough to get normal people who don’t know Cloverfield from a Cockhole into theaters*
* Yes, it is, and the movie will open quite big.