Film festivals always bring out interesting news, and the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas is no exception. In fact, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves was at SXSW over the weekend, and MTV asked him about the current prospects for a sequel to the monster flick. Find out what he said after the jump.
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Back when the trailer for The Crazies was released, there was a link at the end of the clip, pointing everyone towards OgdenMarsh.com. From that point on, all eyes were on this campaign. But why? What was making this one different from all the rest? Well, for starters, it’s a horror film. Secondly, based on the idea of the plot, a viral campaign can go so many ways, so it’s only bound to draw attention. Spoilers and review after the jump.
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Cloverfield was an international phenomenon, but it didn’t exactly propel any of its lead actors into instant stardom. You may have seen them in guest spots on TV or in some bad movies (see: Odette Yustman in The Unborn, or rather, don’t see), but otherwise, they have yet to truly capitalize on the film’s success. Fortunately, Michael Stahl-David (Rob) got some spotlight yesterday as over 100 million people got to see his acting skills in a Super Bowl ad for Coca-Cola. Check out the commercial after the jump.
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The allure of viral marketing, its enough to make people walk miles to find a fake arcade, or dress up like a clown in public. But what is it exactly that draws us to follow something that in the long run is nothing more than a farce?
Today marks the 2 year anniversary of Cloverfield releasing in theaters on January 18th, 2008. We at MovieViral and its forum actually first came together because of the viral campaign for Cloverfield, so the film has special meaning for us. This is our commentary for the film, in which we give you insights into the film based mostly on the viral campaign and other tidbits we happen to know. Of course, you’ll want to play it as you watch the film, just like a DVD commentary. As we explain in this very special ViralCast, you’ll want to synchronize your DVD or Blu-Ray to have it ready and paused near the beginning of the Paramount title screen, where you see the first star come down. When we countdown and say “start”, that’s when you’ll want to hit play. More info and the commentary itself after the jump.
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In an interview with MTV, J.J. Abrams, once again, was asked to comment on the possibility of a sequel to the 2008 film, Cloverfield. And, once again, his response was basically the same…..”Early stages”. How many early stages can there be?
But, instead of coming at this negatively, I will come at it from the side that he never said it was NOT going to happen. So for this site, that is a beautiful thing to…. well, NOT hear!
On the sixth day of viral, my movie gave to me…..
Password protection.
This, by far, may be one of the most exciting parts of a viral. Once you see that screen where you have to enter a password, people go nuts trying everything from 1234 to the zip code of the city the viral takes place in. Looking everywhere you possibly can to find that code, which never turns out to be simple. Who would have thought to use “jllovesth” as a password. And to that person, we thank you!
You can look at one like Cloverfield and think “how nice, why didn’t I think of that?”. Then, you can take the complete opposite, and look at the film Terminator Salvation and the site of Skynet Research. There password was far from plain and simple. In fact, it was “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious“. Well, maybe not that, but it was extremely close.
I can honestly say though, other than the Terminator password (that was posted on our forum!), I wish I knew how these were found. I remember when Cloverfield’s was posted back in our early stage of 1-18-08news.com (yeah, that was us – long story*). I was wondering how it came about. And, maybe I will continue that questioning. The viral site of Aerospace Robotics Corp had a password. It wasn’t a guess. Somehow these are handed to us, and maybe we don’t even know it.
Or, maybe we have such a dedicated group of viral followers, of all levels, and with enough time, the password will be found. Yeah, I like that one better.
With that said, we’re coming for you DPChemicals. We’ll see you soon.
*Join the forum to learn more!
Other Days In The “12 Days of Viral” Series:
A trailer without a title
A Twitter account with the truth
Three Websites
My face on the site
800 Numbers
On the first day of viral, my movie gave to me…..
A trailer without a title.
This is the main thing that got this site in business, so I’m going to lead off with it. Of course, I’m talking about Cloverfield. Who can ever forget that exciting trailer that gave you almost no information. It’s one of those things that make you go crazy, because you have nothing to go on to find out what it was that you just saw. You have explosions. You have the head of the Statue of Liberty being launched into the air. And, to make it all more mysterious, you have a date.
So, by default you head to Google, type in 1-18-08, and for the most part, you get forums of people, just like you, wondering what they just saw. Now, you get hooked on the speculation. And it begins.
As far as viral marketing goes, this one nailed it. Nailed it in a way that I’m sure we won’t see anything like this recreated for a long time. Michael Moore tried it with his Capitalism: A love Story, but we all knew it was him, so there was no surprise or confusion involved. Cloverfield had people guessing right up until the movie was released. Actually, as far as our community goes, we were guessing well after the movie.
Wow. It was just the other day I was writing about how there was nothing happening on the viral site for The Crazies remake. Well, things change. Not only did we get a list of representatives for the community of Ogden Marsh, IA and a sweet deal on a car wash, but we also have two new sites to take a look at.
Dakon/Pendrill Chemical Corporation – Pretty self explanatory about what this place does. One particular note is the fact that they have a login for employees, similar to what we saw during the 2012 campaign and Aerospace Robotics company. Looking forward to a hack and seeing what this place is holding.
If you enter a username and/or password incorrectly three times, you are locked out, but if you quickly click a link above, you are listed as “Patrick”, with 2 messages, and a 4 character login. So far, I’ve failed (it’s not Iowa).
Save Ogden Marsh Blogspot – These are always a fun addition to a viral campaign. Helps the viewer / follower feel a bit more involved in what’s happening. This will more than likely be the site to keep an eye on being that they are the one’s with something to say.
They also have a Twitter account, with @SaveOgdenMarsh, and similar to Surrogates, it compiles actual information as opposed to feeding you made up lines. Makes it feel a little bit closer to home. Makes you feel an actual fear. And, according to the wildly trusted IMDB, there is no “Kim Jonson” in the list. Maybe our Jamie Lascano of Cloverfield days?
It looks like this film is all viral for George A. Romero’s remake. In more than one way. Yes, I went there.
The Crazies is set for release on February 26, 2010
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