As the release date draws closer and closer, details are slowly opening up about Cloverfield and what we can look forward to seeing on the big screen next month.

{sidebar id=1}The film's director, Matt Reeves, was kind enough to talk with IESB (in one of his very first Cloverfield interviews) about the film, how he became involved, the overwhelming internet response, and he hinted just slightly that Slusho may mean a little more than we think. Plus action figures!?

Let the speculation continue! It seems like it's all part of the fun.

IESB: The title Cloverfield has had a long, strange history. Was the plan all along to call it Cloverfield?

Reeves: The title from the beginning was Cloverfield. When I got involved and read the outline, it was Cloverfield. And we worked on the story and we refined it and when the first draft came in it was Cloverfield. It was always referring to the case-designate which means, in the same way that "The Manhattan Project" was the name of that program, the idea here was that this is meant to be the way that this particular case was being referred to by the government and the military. So that was always the title and that was the title of the script. We kind of thought, "Well, probably we'll change it, but that'll be the title."

The funny thing, though, was that the movie was made under such unusual circumstances and so we made the movie, but before me made the movie, during prep we made the trailer. When we made the trailer, we thought, "You know what's going to be exciting? The idea that people are going to get to discover something." When we were kids and you would go to the movie theater, you might see a trailer for some movie you'd never heard of. But today, there's such media-saturation that there's almost no movie you don't know a huge amount about by the time that the movie trailer comes out. And here we thought that the conditions under which we were making the movie - we cast all unknowns because of the style of the film, we thought, "wouldn't it just be great to be able to just surprise people so they could look and the trailer and go, 'what is that?'" Because that's an experience I don't think many people have had since we were kids and some people have never had because they're much younger than we are. And so, at that point, we said, "we'll let people know that there's this kind of code name. But we'll put out the trailer without a title."

It was actually the president, Rob Moore, from Paramount who - because we were talking about making this sort of mysterious, fun trailer to get people excited -- it was his idea to not put the title on it. We said, "Maybe we'll call it Cloverfield, maybe we won't. Who knows?" And then as we started making the movie, it was always Cloverfield to us. The thing that we didn't expect was that there was such a reaction to this trailer and people starting knowing the movie as that and as 1-18-08. It started getting its own sort of momentum. The title that we came up with that we really wanted to go with was another obscure title that had to do with another reference to the film. Once you saw the film, it had quick resonance and we loved the title and were getting very excited about calling it that. But by the time we got to this place, we'd also sort of fallen in love with calling it Cloverfield. We thought, what are we doing, taking the title from one word that people don't understand and find is mysterious to another word that people don't understand and find is mysterious. People already know it as the one word, so why would we do that? And by now we already had, in our heads, been calling it Cloverfield in a more permanent way because that's just what sort of happens over time. So we decided, okay, that's the name of the film. Let's not confuse people further. Lets let that be the title.

IESB: The marketing has really taken on a life of its own. Today you released the widget, can you talk a little about that?

Reeves: It has! That was very unexpected and exciting. The widget, we thought it was - well, what excited me about doing the film was the idea that it was kind of like a grand-scale, huge, sort-of absurd story. You know, it's a monster movie. But doing in the style with an incredible sense of realism and naturalism - in essence, doing a huge epic-scale movie, but doing from an intimate point of view and having you connect closely with the characters. So this clip is to give you - because a lot of people have seen a lot of the images in the clip in the trailers -and I guess what excites us about this clip is it begins to show you the sort of vibe in which the movie happens. Because one of the exciting things about the premise of the movie - which is that this movie is found footage and you're going to watch this footage - there's the Handicam and the only cuts you see are when the person operating the camera is turning the camera on and off. I felt that if this were really happening, I wouldn't turn off the camera unless I either mistakenly turned it off or if there were a moment where I finally decided I had to turn it off because I had to get the hell out of there or whatever it was. So as a director, I thought, we need to have a lot of very, very long continuous takes.

What was so fun about that is the kind of tension that builds over that. The clip that we're showing is something that a lot of people have seen in a kind of disjointed way. It give off the vibe of the film which is a kind of naturalistic vibe that plays out and has real-time takes that play out over a long period of time. And very short, kind of very jarring, rhythm. All of which is meant to seem it like it's found footage. There's a kind of fun to that and we thought, "This'll be a way for people to get a real taste of the movie. People will see how we can build a real sense of tension and excitement by using other techniques.

IESB: Were you surprised by all the people that refused to believe that it was its own movie? That thought it was a secret franchise?

Reeves: You know, the thing about it is, I think we were all surprised by everything. The teaser trailer got such a huge response in a way we never expected with everyone on the internet. The truth is, all the things JJ has been involved in - from LOST and Alias and the new Mission: Impossible and now Star Trek, which will surrounded by all kinds of mystery. I think that people are used to mysteries coming from him so I thought that this one would feed into the fun of that but I had no idea the way that it would sort of captivate people and that was very exciting. We just never anticipated that. That was just something that I think took on a life of its own. It wasn't a surprise so much that that reaction was big, but that people started making associations was a big surprise. People thought it was any number of different movies under a different franchise or, literally, there were some people who thought, literally, that it was some sort of weird teaser trailer to the next season of LOST. I thought this was amazing! There's nothing in the film that looks anything like anything in LOST. It just shows how people, when there's a sense of mystery, how people can begin to project their ideas into it. That's always exciting to watch and we were making the movie as this was going on. I'd come home from a long day's shoot and I'd go look on the internet, just to see what was going on, and it was amazing what people were coming up with. People were creating their own stories. That was exciting and fun to watch.

IESB: Do you worry that that might have a negative effect in the long run? That people will have built up their expectations so much that they're going to let themselves down?

Reeves: I really don't because I think that, at the end of the day, people enjoy speculation and at the end of the day they can still go see this movie. I really believe that - and I think we all feel this way - that the movie is not really quite what people expect. And I guess we all feel that the movie follows through on what the trailer does and sort of exceeds it. I really hope that people feel that way. The thing about it is - and I hope that people get a sense of this from the widget thing - there's something about this particular style. Again, of shooting a grand-scale, huge movie but in an intimate, one-camera style. It creates something that is a very different experience. It's not like any other movies that are being made right now. I think that people will find the freshness in the way that it's being done and in the style and in the characters and hopefully in the story. I mean, we're all very excited about it. I'm sure there are some people who will just miss being able to have that sort of anticipation for that kind of fun, but I think there will also be a kind of way where this will start to just sort of slate that excitement because it has its own thing. And hopefully, in a way, it can continue its own mystery. There are things about the story - there are a lot of different levels and layers to do it. Hopefully people will be captivated by the mysteries that are in the film as well as that which is revealed. I think at the end of the day, we'll see. You're always nervous because you hope that people are going to like what you've done but the only thing we know today is that we're very excited about the film.

IESB: One of the weirdest aspects of the advertising has been the Slusho tie-in. Is that something that just kind of exploded or did you think it would just be a great way of throwing people off?

Reeves: Well, I can't really say that it's even necessarily throwing people off. It's a connection, obviously, back to a reference to Alias and it's part of the involved connectivity between that and there's a - I don't know what you could call it - a sort of meta-story that is part of - almost like an origin story - that is connected. It's almost like tentacles that grow out of the film and lead, also, to the ideas in the film. And there's this weird way where you can go see the movie and it's one experience. It's a big, really satisfying and really thrilling experience.

But there's also this other place where you can get engaged where there's this other sort of aspect for all those people who are into that. So Slusho and its connection to the film and how it plays out with the website and the commercials and all that, it all has a kind of story to it. All the stories kind of bounce off one another and inform each other. But, at the end of the day, this movie stands on it's own to be a movie. You can experience it that way or, if you so wish - I guess that's the thing; what was exciting about the idea of doing this handicam movie was the idea of point of view. How we were rooted in this point of view and there were places where the camera can't get in. But one of the things, again, is people today who are shooting things on their video phone. There's such media-saturation and such technological saturation that people are documenting their lives in all these different ways. We thought what would be really interesting, even just thinking about the idea that this event could be seen from a different person. This is what happened when this event happened to these people. But there's actually another idea, another movie, another point of view, another prism to look through to what other people - who else might being going through the same experience. In a way, the internet sort of stories and connections and clues are, in a way, a prism and they're another way of looking at the same thing. To us, it's just another exciting aspect of the storytelling. At the end of the day, we're just making this movie and that all because icing on the cake.

IESB: You had worked with JJ Abrams a lot before, but what drew you to this movie, specifically?

Reeves: It's interesting because there's a movie that I wrote and that I'm gonna direct and JJ's involved and we were talking about putting together all this stuff and about casting and about when we could go and JJ was always talking about how he had just put together this deal with Paramount to make films and how this was the first one he wanted to make.

He was telling me about it and I was really intrigued by the idea. I never had any idea that I would be involved or that he'd even want me to be involved. Then one day when we were talking about this project that I'm doing with him, he said there's this other project that I really could do. The other person that came to me was JJ's producing partner, Bryan Burk. The three of us have known each other since, literally, we were kids. They came to me and said, "Look, here's this idea. I know JJ told you about it but we would really love you to do it." I thought, oh, it's this crazy monster movie. Let me read something. I met with Drew Godard, who's the writer. I loved him. I read the outline and I looked at them and said, to me, the outline read like this huge movie. This is Roland Emmerich-sized with the stuff that happens in this movie. I had never done visual effects and I thought, well, this is crazy. This is fun and it'll be an incredibly exciting and fun different movie. But why is it you want me to do it? They said because we know there are a number of people who would be able to nail the monster part of a monster movie but we're interested in what you're interested in which is having a realistic approach and doing something that is rooted in character and naturalism.

And then I started getting excited. Because what excited me was doing something that was really outrageous but doing it like it really happened. Doing it in a very naturalistic style and doing it in improvisation and doing continuous takes and instead of shooting a scene in a conventional way where you might shoot from ten different angles, we're gonna shoot it from one continuous shot and then suddenly have jump-cuts. Working with actors to have them improvise, not just their lines but also in terms of visual effects. Having them fall down. Having them do things in a way were everything that you've learned in the past you can throw away. It was a great, fun and invigorating challenge. That was what really got me interested. I knew it would be something that would be very different from what I'd done and I'd be able to bring my sensibility to it. I am very interested in character-based stories and in naturalism and realism and the juxtaposition of those ideas which is a giant monster done in a naturalistic way. That was very exciting. I thought, if that's what you guys want to do, then I couldn't be more excited. That's kind of what hooked me.

IESB: The date had played such a huge role in the advertising. Is it true that if you to see this on the day it comes out, 1-18-08, the date in the film is actually that date as well?

Reeves: No, that's not true. The date has become because, again, we didn't have the title in the teaser and so that was a way of letting people know what it was. I think the two ways people referred to the movie where by its codename, Cloverfield, because there was knowledge of that, and just by the date. The reveal is really what happens in the story and the way it unfolds and the sort of mysteries in that world. The date is just the date we come out and when everyone gets to see the movie.

IESB: Because of the way the marketing is being done, you can't have merchandising tie-ins. Kids can't rush out and buy a toy of the monster. Is that something will come along later?

Reeves: Yeah, the thing about it is, which is very funny, is one of the initial inspirations for the movie was that JJ was with his son in Japan and they went to a toy store. There was shelf just filled with Godzilla toys and he was like, Godzilla is just so amazing. The whole idea of Godzilla is such an amazing idea. So that was sort of weird inspiration to do this story. That and also the poster for Escape From New York. That is, even though it's an image that is never in the film, is an image of the head of the Statue of Liberty in the street of New York and there's sort of a story that that implies. The was kind of the conceit for the whole story and now we've made this movie and one of the fun ideas was that, even though we couldn't do all the tie-ins up-front, was the idea that there would be this toy that could be this monster once people are introduced to it. That, actually, has been going on and there will be a monster. It's not going to be a big merchandising movie, but just for those people who are into that stuff and who are fans of that, there will be a toy. Like in the way that Alien had a toy - that was definitely a huge inspiration for this movie.

Cloverfield opens January 18th, 2008.

Don't forget to grab the widget below for your very own and share with your friends to win the Cloverfield Contest!

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