In the 21st century, with TV ads, extended online trailers and behind-the-scenes blogs aplenty, it’s hard to keep a good secret in Hollywood. When a film is announced these days, initial buzz builds just because of maybe the plot or the actors who signed on, such as 2008’s most anticipated movies to date, “Indiana Jones 4″ and “The Sex and the City Movie,” among others.
There are pictures from the set in every latest Entertainment Weekly, in the case of the latter, and a Vanity Fair cover story, in the case of the former, both a good five months before the films’ releases. A good “buzz” is one thing, but blatant overexposure is quite another.
Enter the genius of J.J. Abrams.
The man famous for the most controversial haircut in recent television history (“Felicity”), for making Jennifer Garner famous for more than just being Mrs. Affleck (“Alias”), and for single-handedly crashing Oceanic Flight 815 (“Lost”), seems to have come up with the perfect resolution to stop the Hollywood hype machine dead in its tracks.
The anti-hype hype.
This last summer, bloggers and film fans alike were frantic over “Transformers,” not because of the return of Optimus Prime or the rise of Shia LaBeouf, but because of an untitled trailer later dubbed “Cloverfield.”
The trailer showed various beautiful people celebrating a friend’s farewell when all of a sudden a fiery explosion shows up in the distance in the middle of New York City and the head of the Statue of Liberty barrels down onto a side street, with terrified screams and cries erupting from the mystified city dwellers. Who or what is causing this chaos is left completely unknown.
Before catching the name “Cloverfield,” which eventually stuck and became the film’s official title late last year, the film was simply known as “1-18-08″ for its release date announced at the end of the trailer.
Giant posters with a headless Statue of Liberty and the word “terrifying” were handed out at the larger-than-life Comic-Con convention in late July, and Paramount even sent out mysterious items to members of the press, such as a mysterious lock buried in (what seemed like) torn-up dollar bills.
I know I’ve been hooked simply because of the mystery combined with my longtime affinity for Abrams, but the question still stands. Will this new method work at the box office?
With a cast of mostly unknowns, unless you can recognize Lizzy Caplan (of “Mean Girls” fame as Janis Ian) in the latest trailers, and a still unidentified villain, will viewers really buy into the mystery and buy enough tickets this weekend to make “Cloverfield” a hit?
Viewers are so accustomed to knowing the major plot points and characters’ intimate details before the film is released that walking into a movie such as “Cloverfield,” currently shrouded in mystery, may be highly unlikely.
Besides working on “Cloverfield” with longtime collaborator Matt Reeves, who serves as director for the film, Abrams is also extending his science fiction chops with his work on the newest “Star Trek.” If Paramount can trust him with one of their oldest and most trusted film and television franchises, something tells me the quality of the film won’t be an issue.
The future of this method of anti-hype is as hard to read as the trailers for the film. If the technique fails, it will be more of the same overexposure Hollywood is so good at. If “Cloverfield” can make a real name for itself beyond “1-18-08,” film marketing and the way we experience movies may undergo a serious (and maybe much needed) makeover.
If you totally missed the anti-hype for “Cloverfield,” e-mail Stanhope at kstanhope@media.ucla.edu.