July 23 2008
No Cloverfield Sequel, Says Abrams
posted by Ben Eldridge at 10:11 am
No Cloverfield sequel says Abrams… at least not yet anyway.
If you haven’t taken the time to check out the J.J. Abrams produced, Drew Goddard scripted monster flick Cloverfield yet, then you really should make a point of it. Not only does it beat Roland Emmerich’s 1998 travesty Godzilla into the ground, it places the large-scale monster movie in a modern context with a style that says so much whilst giving nothing away.
Devoid of pretty much all of the cliché hallmarks we have come to expect from the monster movie, it manages to be thrilling as hell and funny at the same time whilst leaving many questions unanswered and packing a lot into the relatively economical running time of around 80 minutes.
The only movie of recent times that I could, perhaps tenuously, compare it to would be the Korean film The Host. The advent of the smart monster movie is here.
With so many question marks surrounding the films plot, such as… Where did the monster come from? What happened to the surviving characters? What was that thing that fell into the ocean in the final few minutes of the film when the characters Beth and Rob are on the carnival ride in Coney Island? It would seem that there would be more than enough threads to extrapolate on for a sequel.
However, in a recent interview with the Fox upfront presentation for advertisers in New York City on May 15, where he was promoting his upcoming science fiction TV series Fringe, Abrams stated that although they have some really good ideas from director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard, there is another idea that he would rather pursue with the same people. He also remarked that he knows the studio is very keen on the idea of a Cloverfield sequel.
In addition, for all those people who have seen the film and would like to have a quick overview of some of the hidden and not so obvious stuff in the plot, this FAQ on YouTube by a film reviewer is a great place to start.
Lastly, this exhaustive essay by Derek C. F. Pegritz entitled ‘Modern Monsters and Modern Humanity’ charts the history of the monster movie and discusses reasons why the film works so well is also worth a look.
Trailer: Cloverfield is out now on DVD (Rating (M) Fantasy Violence)
August 11th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
See I dunno, I thought Cloverfield was pretty blah (or ‘meh’ as you might like to put it). I couldn’t really find myself having any attachment to the characters whatsoever and so wasn’t particularly interested in their fate. The creature was very well designed and agreed, Emmerich’s Godzilla be damned (same can be said for the abomination that was 10,000 BC as well).