You know, reading skwirlinator's post at the top of the thread got me to thinking........
.........here's my two cents on
Cloverfield, using those seven points he mentioned as a start............
Point 1........By using an ensemble cast and an unknown director, it seems Abrams and company have tried to keep the film off the proverbial Hollywood radar screen as much as possible(which gives them, it would seem, more latitude but at the same time more risk should the film not do well in theatres)
Point 2........A monster film with a small budget($30 million was the reported amount) does seem worrisome.....but, considering the extensive use of Handi-Cams', cellphone cameras, etc., it probably saved them a lot of money(which they could then use for CGI and other special effects which
do cost lots of dollars)
Point 3........I agree with skwirl on this one; it is risky releasing a film in what is essentially, for Hollywood, a near-dead period for feature films....on the other hand, if the hype towards
Cloverfield is equaled by a large box-office take, then the risk might be worth it.....
Point 4.........Usually, when a film has not been screened, it generally means the film is not expected to do well once it's released........on the other hand, as skwirl points out in his post, quoting Reeves,
Back when we were doing Felicity, there was a script that leaked. It was weird. We had the script--then within an hour there were huge plot reveals up on the Internet. That was the beginning of J.J.'s desperate need to protect.
.........in this day and age, with the Internet and YouTube, can you really blame them for protecting a film like this with the same level of security one might see at, say, Ft. Knox?
Point 5........I'm actually not too worried about this; if Abrams is willing to put a relative unknown in the director's chair, then more power to him if the film does well......on the flip side, though, if the film tanks, does anybody actually think Abrams will get the blame for it being the producer and not the director?
Point 6.........It is interesting to note how fast the film went from being green-lighted to pre-production through the filming and so forth in under a year, especially considering that it is a monster film with a very large amt. of CGI and other visual effects present; throw in the fact that there wasn't a written script until production had started and that, as pointed out elsewhere, the cast had signed on primarily due to Abrams' involvement and it would look as though there wasn't a lot of focus put into the making of
Cloverfield....of course, the box office receipts will tell us whether it worked or not
Point 7........Paramount's using a very crafty, but risky strategy of viral marketing through the use of selective leaks, teaser trailers seen either before or after other films(...
Transformers, unless I'm mistaken, was one of the films they attached some of those teasers' to.....) and lots of Internet hype(websites, YouTube, etc.) similar to the way
Snakes on a Plane was hyped(and IIRC that movie was a disappointment once it made it to the big screen)......question is, will
Cloverfield go the way of Snakes, or will it surprise us and do well once its' released in theatres?
