Zed’s Dead

The months of viral marketing and relentless hype paid off as Cloverfield raked in $41 million during it’s opening weekend. Yahoo! says:

“Cloverfield,” a $25 million movie with a no-name cast from Paramount Pictures, set a record for a January release, surpassing the $35.9 million reissue of “Star Wars” in 1997. It will also set a record for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. “Black Hawk Down” earned $33.6 million during the four-day period in 2002. Paramount said its movie will earn more than $47 million after the Monday holiday is included. Box office observers had expected “Cloverfield” to open in the $20 million range for the three-day period, a little ahead of “27 Dresses.” They largely discounted Paramount’s unusual forecast last week that the order would be reversed.

Congratulations to everyone involved. Especially me. Because this means I never I have to write about this damn movie ever again. Yay me!


There’s a lot of stuff out there that reveals the origin of the monster, possible sequels, and hidden messages. You can find it here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: NOW WITH BLURRY CAMERA PHONE VIDEO!!!


Over at the Superhero Hype boards, the first moving image of the Cloverfield monster has been posted online. It clearly shows the puffy gill thingys that are reportedly on top of it’s head and it shows the front legs as they’re described in all the spoilers. What it doesn’t show is my commitment to be a good father to my and Jessica Alba’s baby, no matter the police and judge say. They throw around things like “she doesn’t know you” and “restraining order”, but they’re just trying to keep us apart, baby.


SEE CLIPS OF THE MONSTER AFTER THE JUMP!


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/Film has posted a bunch of fan art of the Cloverfield monster. This appears to be pretty accurate as it looks just how it was described in the spoilers (you can read that here). Needless to say, if I saw this walking down the street and you wanted to set the line about when I’d piss myself, I’d probably put the over/under at about two seconds.



More pictures under the jump!


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So, some guy went to Paramount’s advanced screening last night + plus the magic of the internet = spoiler. Before you proceed after the jump, please know that this spoiler reveals major plot points, a full description of the monster, and which characters die..




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/film supposedly got there hands on some production notes from Cloverfield in which JJ Abrams, director Matt Reeves, and writer Drew Goddard discuss the monster:

The concept for the monster (affectionately known simply as “Clover” in-house) is simple, says Abrams. “He’s a baby. He’s brand-new. He’s confused, disoriented and irritable. And he’s been down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years.”

And where is he from? “We don’t say – deliberately,” notes Goddard. “Our movie doesn’t have the scientist in the white lab coat who shows up and explains things like that. We don’t have that scene.”

Not only is the creature disoriented – he’s downright angry. “There are a bunch of smaller things – humans – that are annoying him and shooting at him like a swarm of bees,” observes Reeves. “None of these things are going to kill the monster, but they hurt it and it doesn’t understand. It’s this new environment that it finds frightening.”

As part of a “post-birth ritual,” as Abrams describes it, the monster is seen early on scratching his back on a building (destroying it in the process), to remove a layer of parasites that are set loose to wreak their own havoc on the city.

“They’re these horrifying, dog-sized creatures that just scatter around the city and add to the nightmare of the evening,” Abrams says. “The parasites have a voracious, rabid, bounding nature, but they also have a crab-like crawl,” Reeves explains. “They have the viciousness of a dog, but with the ability to climb walls and stick to things.”

A baby that’s thousands of years old? That’s a lot of child support.

Today Movieweb, posted a picture of what they claimed to be a toy version of the Cloverfield monster. Almost immediately people began calling in a fake, with Harry Knowles from AICN pretty much agreeing.:

I got hit with some dire dreaded strain of some evil viral infection and have just come out of the haze of strange colored substances flung from me lungs… And I get to the computer to see… “CLOVERFIELD MONSTER ONLINE”…The alleged CLOVERFIELD monster comes from MovieWeb - That is not an early design - nor is it - the final design. It is, according to my sources (and my sources do kick ass) - “BUNK”

Who knows what’s real and what’s not, but I have to admit the monster (below) is a little disappointing. Just like I’m afraid the whole movie will be. Nothing can live up to this much hype. Nothing except my sex tape with Megan Fox. Oh, yeah baby. You like that.


(See the monster after the jump)


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