Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage monster film directed by Matt Reeves and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller (in his film debut), Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, and Odette Yustman. In the film, six friends attempt to flee from a monster that attacks New York City.
Development began when producer J. J. Abrams started conceptualizing a monster movie and enlisted Neville Page to design the eventual creature, called Clover. In February 2007, the project was secretly greenlit by Paramount Pictures and produced by Abrams's Bad Robot. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles and New York City in 2007. The project had several working titles, including Slusho, Cheese, and Greyshot. As part of a viral marketing campaign, a teaser trailer was released ahead of screenings of Transformers (2007) without a title. The final title was revealed in a second teaser trailer attached to screenings of Beowulf (2007). With limited pre-release details, it garnered online speculation, including forums and websites dedicated to uncovering hidden information about the film. Several tie-ins, including a prequel manga series, were released as part of the marketing campaign.
Cloverfield was released on January 18, 2008, and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Reeves's direction and the cinéma vérité style narrative. It earned $172.4 million worldwide at the box office against a $25 million budget. It is the first installment of the Cloverfield franchise, followed by 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016 and The Cloverfield Paradox in 2018. A direct sequel is in development.
Plot
The footage from a personal camcorder is recovered by the U.S. Department of Defense in the area "formerly known as Central Park", bearing a disclaimer about multiple sightings of a case designated "Cloverfield".
On April 27, 2008, Rob Hawkins wakes up with Beth McIntyre in her father's apartment before embarking on a date across New York City and Coney Island.
On May 22, 2008, Rob's brother Jason and Jason's girlfriend, Lily Ford, throw a surprise farewell party for Rob at his Lower Manhattan apartment before he moves to Japan for his new job. Jason asks Rob's best friend, Hudson "Hud" Platt, to film testimonials for Rob during the party. Beth, upset by Rob's lack of communication after their one-night stand, brings another man to the party. Beth and Rob argue, and she leaves shortly before an earthquake occurs, causing a brief citywide power outage. The local news reports a capsized oil tanker near Liberty Island. From the roof, the partygoers witness an explosion in the distance and flee as flaming debris flies in their direction. As they leave the building, the severed head of the Statue of Liberty is thrown into the city and lands in the street nearby. In the chaos, Hud records an enormous creature several blocks away, collapsing the Woolworth Building. Rob, Jason, Lily, and Hud take cover in a nearby convenience store, sheltering from the smoke and debris of the building's collapse. When they emerge, they find their friend Marlena Diamond covered in dust, in shock from seeing the creature "eating people".
As the group attempts to evacuate Manhattan by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, Rob receives a call from Beth, who is trapped in her apartment at the Time Warner Center. The creature appears and destroys the bridge, killing Jason. The others retreat to an electronics store in Lower Manhattan, where news reports show the Army National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division attacking the creature, as well as smaller parasites falling off the creature's body and attacking soldiers and civilians.
Rob, Hud, Lily, and Marlena venture up to Midtown Manhattan to rescue Beth from her apartment. After being caught in a battle between the creature and the military, they hide in a nearby subway station and decide that staying underground will be safer. While walking through the subway tunnels toward Midtown, they are attacked by a group of parasites, one of which bites Marlena. The four escape the tunnels, and are found by soldiers and taken to a field hospital. When Marlena begins to bleed from her eyes, she is forcibly taken away from the others by a biohazard team, before her body swells and explodes. Rob, still intending to save Beth, persuades a commander to release them. He is informed when the last evacuation helicopter will depart before the military executes its "Hammerdown Protocol", a saturation bombing operation which may kill the creature but will also destroy Manhattan.
Rob, Hud and Lily travel to the Time Warner Center, find Beth impaled on exposed rebar in her damaged apartment, and rescue her. The quartet then travel to the evacuation point at Grand Central Terminal, and reach the evacuation helicopters. Lily is rushed into the first departing helicopter, while Rob, Beth, and Hud are evacuated in a second helicopter, and witness the creature being bombed by a B-2 Spirit. The creature briefly collapses, but rises from the smoke and strikes the helicopter, causing it to crash in Central Park. The trio survive the crash and escape from the wreckage, but the creature approaches the crash site and kills Hud. Rob and Beth grab the camera and take shelter under Greyshot Arch. As air raid sirens blare, they each provide their last testimony of the day's events. The arch begins to crumble as the bombing commences, and the camera is knocked out of Rob's hand and buried beneath the rubble. Rob and Beth proclaim their love for each other, and are heard screaming as the footage cuts out.
The film ends with the finale of Rob and Beth's trip to Coney Island a month earlier. Unseen by them, a barely discernible object falls from the sky and into the ocean (in the right area of the footage).
After the credits, a voice can be heard seemingly saying, "Help us". When played in reverse, it says "It's still alive".
Cast
Michael Stahl-David as Rob Hawkins, preparing to leave for Japan for a new job, while dealing with complicated feelings about Beth Odette Yustman as Beth McIntyre, long-time platonic friend of Rob T.J. Miller as Hud Platt, the cameraman capturing the events and Rob's best friend Jessica Lucas as Lily Ford, Jason's fiancée Lizzy Caplan as Marlena Diamond, Lily's friend and Hud's crush Mike Vogel as Jason Hawkins, Rob's brother Ben Feldman as Travis Marello, Beth's friend Margot Farley as Jenn, Rob's friend and Antonio's girlfriend Theo Rossi as Antonio, Rob's friend and Jenn's boyfriend Kelvin Yu as Clark, a friend of Rob and Hud Liza Lapira as Heather, Lei and Lily's friend Lili Mirojnick as Lei, Heather and Lily's friend Brian Klugman as Charlie, a partygoer Jamie Harlan as Jamie Lascano, a partygoer who previously appeared in the Cloverfield Alternate Reality game Billy Brown as Sergeant Pryce, coordinates an evacuation station and warns the survivors about the impending "Hammerdown" protocol
In addition, NY1 TV journalist Roma Torre has a cameo as herself, reporting on a television screen watched by the party-goers. The film's director, Matt Reeves, provides the uncredited voice for the two brief phrases (one normal, one in reversed audio) after the credits.
Production Development J. J. Abrams conceived a monster film after he and his son visited a toy store in Japan while promoting Mission: Impossible III. He explained, "We saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own American monster, and not like King Kong. I love King Kong. King Kong is adorable. And Godzilla is a charming monster. We love Godzilla, but I wanted something that was just insane and intense."
In February 2007, Paramount Pictures secretly greenlit Cloverfield, to be produced by Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard. Both Abrams and Reeves have been friends since they were 13 years oldKathleen Kennedy in and went on to co-create the college drama series Felicity for The WB,David Hofstede while Goddard was a writer for ABC's Lost at the time (also co-created by Abrams). The project was produced by Abrams's company, Bad Robot.
The severed head of the Statue of Liberty was inspired by the poster of the 1981 film Escape from New York, in which the head lies on a street in New York. Reeves explained, "It's an incredibly provocative image. And that was the source that inspired producer J. J. Abrams to say, 'Now this would be an interesting idea for a movie'."
Title The film was initially titled Cloverfield, changed several times throughout production, and was reverted. Matt Reeves explained this was due to the hype caused by the teaser trailer. "That excitement spread to such a degree that we suddenly couldn't use the name anymore. So we started using all these names like Slusho and Cheese. And people always found out what we were doing!" He said that "Cloverfield" was the government's case designation for the events caused by the monster, comparing the titling to that of the real Manhattan Project, though the government did not originate this. Cloverfield Blvd is the highway exit Abrams takes to his Santa Monica office, and which used to lead to the Santa Monica Airport, which originally bore the name Clover Field.
The final title Greyshot was proposed, taken from the archway that the two survivors take shelter under at the end of the movie, but Matt Reeves said this was rejected because the film was already so well known as Cloverfield.
The film received a subtitle in Japan, where it was released as . The subtitle "Destroyer" was chosen by Abrams and was translated into Japanese as by Paramount Japan at his request. The subtitle was chosen for the manga spin-off, Cloverfield/Kishin, released exclusively in Japan.
Casting Casting was done in secret, with no script sent to candidates. To prevent the leaking of plot information, instead of auditioning the actors with scenes from the film, scripts from Abrams's previous productions were used, such as the television series Alias and Lost. Some scenes were also written specifically for the audition process, not intended for use in the film. Lizzy Caplan stated that she accepted a role in Cloverfield without knowing the premise, solely because she was a fan of the Abrams-produced Lost, and her experience of discovering its true nature initially caused her to state that she would not sign on for a film in the future "without knowing full well what it is". She indicated that her character was a sarcastic outsider, and that her role was "physically demanding".
Production With an estimated production budget of $30 million, principal photography began in mid-June 2007 in New York. One cast member said that the film would look like it cost $150 million, though without recognizable and expensive actors. Filmmakers used the Panasonic HVX200 for most of the interior scenes, and the Sony CineAlta F23 high-definition video camera to record nearly all of the New York exterior scenes. Filming took place on Coney Island, with scenes shot at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and the B&B Carousell. The scenes of tanks firing at the creature while the main characters hide in a stairwell were filmed on Hennesy Street on Warner Bros. Studios backlot in Burbank, California. Some interior shots were taped on a soundstage at Downey, California. Bloomingdale's in the movie was actually shot in an emptied Robinsons-May store that was under reconstruction in Arcadia, California. The outside scenes of Sephora and the electronics store were taped in Downtown Los Angeles.