Cloverfield (Case Study)

Released in 2008 Cloverfield is a film which follows 6 New Yorkers who were in attendance of a going away party when the city was attacked by a giant monster. The film was made successful through its marketing techniques. By withholding much of the information until after the film was released, trailers and press releases were actually misleading and made the film seem much greater than critics and audiences eventually discovered. While it has a run time of 84 minutes (11 of which being credits) the film felt like it dragged on far too much and featured very little of the monster.

By throwing JJ Abrams name into the trailer, and putting a heavy influence on the soldiers appearance in the film it makes it feel much more action packed than it actually is. The films hype is most evident through the fact that the name was change frequently through production,  Matt Reeves explained that the title was changed frequently due to the hype caused by the teaser trailer. "That excitement spread to such a degree that we suddenly couldn't use the name anymore. So we started using all these names like Slusho and Cheese. And people always found out what we were doing!"

While in production the film would release nameless titles and these saw rise to speculations on what the film would be about, even with the misinterpretation of the line "it's alive" as "it's a lion" causing some to believe it would be a film about Voltron.

When the film was eventually released after a 6 month viral marketing campaign and was successful with the most common complaint being the nausea inducing camera work. It was a hit with critics but for audiences it felt not only dull but also dragged out. Atop all the blurry shots of the monster there is an unnecessary love story between Rob and Beth which feels so forced it somewhat detracts from the pace of the movie. 5 years after release it is mocked as a slow and boring film, and with the release of the current Godzilla it will be long forgotten. Well except for the success of it's viral marketing, the film is praised for it's marketing strategy with many newer films trying to follow suit. From its initial trailer as 01-18-08 to it's final release it was marketed as a monster movie for the "youtube generation" heavily relying on online and social media to create a buzz. A technique which is now seen as the norm