Beth and Rob argue over her guest, and Beth leaves shortly before a supposed earthquake occurs, causing a brief citywide power outage the local news reports a capsized oil tanker near Liberty Island. Rob's former romance Beth brings a new man to the party. Their friend Hud films testimonials for Rob during the party. Rob has a farewell party thrown for him by his brother Jason and Jason's girlfriend Lily, celebrating Rob's new job in Japan. Fragments of this overwritten footage appear during the course of the film. Older, saved footage shows Rob waking up with Beth in her father's apartment above Columbus Circle before sharing a special day across New York City and Coney Island. The film is presented as footage from a personal camcorder recovered by the United States Department of Defense in the area "formerly known as Central Park," bearing a disclaimer stating multiple sightings of a case designated Cloverfield. A direct sequel is currently in development. The film served as the first installment of the Cloverfield franchise, followed by 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016 and The Cloverfield Paradox in 2018. It earned $172 million worldwide at the box office against a $25 million budget. Several tie-ins, including a prequel manga series, were released as part of the film's marketing campaign.Ĭloverfield was released on January 18, 2008, and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Reeves' direction and the film's cinéma vérité style narrative. With limited details revealed about the film prior to release, it garnered online speculation, including forums and websites dedicated to uncovering any hidden information about the film. The film's official title was revealed in a second teaser trailer attached to screenings of Beowulf. As part of a viral marketing campaign, a teaser trailer was released ahead of screenings of Transformers without a title attached. During production, the project went under several working titles, including Slusho, Cheese and Greyshot. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles that same year. In February 2007, the project was secretly greenlit by Paramount Pictures and produced by Abrams' Bad Robot Productions. Abrams started conceptualizing a new monster and enlisted Neville Page to design the creature, referred to as Clover. The film uses a found footage motif to follow six young New York City residents fleeing from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party.ĭevelopment began when producer J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan, and Mike Vogel. The film stars Michael Stahl-David, Odette Yustman, T.J. Cloverfield is a 2008 American monster film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J.