Matt Reeves Describes The Scariest Aspect Of Cloverfield's Mysterious First Teaser [Exclusive]
Picture this: It's 2007. Michael Bay's "Transformers" movie has just come out, and you're excited to see Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Megatron (Hugo Weaving) duking it out on the big screen. The previews are starting and they all look pretty cool, but one really sticks out to you. For almost two minutes, we see what appears to be a normal going-away party, apparently shot with a standard camcorder, before things quickly get weird. A tremor cuts out the power, debris explodes in the sky, and people find themselves running on the streets of New York City as inhuman roars ripple through the sky. The footage ends with the Statue of Liberty's head smashing onto the streets and absolutely no indication of what this mysterious movie is called.
Of course, we now know that this movie wasn't for a secret "Godzilla" or "Voltron" movie. It was for "Cloverfield," the found-footage monster flick that put director Matt Reeves on the map. In light of the film celebrating its 15-year anniversary with a newly released 4K SteelBook, /Film's Eric Vespe and Reeves discussed the movie's lasting impact, specifically how effective that initial teaser was. As it turns out, what we saw in that teaser was essentially all that its director had filmed.
"The thing that was scary to me, and I think to all of us, is that we were so early into shooting, and we were still finding the movie," Reeves admitted.
Flying by the seat of their pants
According to the director, the footage shown in the teaser was essentially shot as a test. He claimed that the possibility of the film even being made came into question due to its found-footage nature.
"This was the case where that very trailer was made of footage that was actually a test to see if we could even do the movie," Matt Reeves explained, "because it was a handycam VFX movie and the effects people at that time didn't know they could even track the handheld footage."
Needless to say, the VFX team was able to track the wild action being played out on screen. On top of that technical hurdle being overcome, the team had even more to celebrate –- their risk of sending in that footage, with its still un-finalized title omitted, was being received positively by the general public.
"To be honest with you, it was thrilling and terrifying," recalled Reeves. "We always thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if this trailer came out of nowhere and people go, 'What the heck is that?” That was super cool."
With several other blockbusters now under his belt, Reeves looks back on the "Cloverfield" teaser with awe. He considers it a wild thing to have done back then, especially with his early resume.
"It was definitely by the seat of our pants," he said. "It was thrilling and it was really fun, but I look back and I think, 'Oh my God, that was a crazy thing to go through.'"