Since its teaser trailer blasted across the geek-osphere this past summer, one of the hottest topics of conversation has been what the heck exactly is that JJ Abrams produced project with the codename Cloverfield? Rumors have swirled, alleged photos and posters have surfaced online and then almost quickly debunked. While an official website for the film offered some obtuse clues, fan sites attempting to unravel the sectrets of the film have become a virtual cottage industry online.
What is known that the film tells the story of an attack on New York City by some kind of giant monster and is told in the first person point of view of video camera footage.
A new full trailer for the film premiers today in front of Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf, which does reveal that the fake title Cloverfield is actually the film’s real title. (Oh that tricky Abrams.)
Also hitting the ‘net today are three new pictures from the film that accompanied an interview with Lizzy Caplan, who plays one of the Manhattanites trying to flee whatever it is that’s going on.
In the interview, at BlackBook Mag, Caplan describes how the film’s secrecy even extended to the casting process and how the actors weren’t entirely sure of what they were auditioning for.
Well, we weren’t exactly clear about the characters we were playing when we signed on. The producers sat us down and we auditioned with scenes that aren’t in the movie. Some were from Alias and some had been written specifically for the audition. And they were all very misleading… During the first few weeks, it was like, “Oh god, this is what we’re doing? I had no idea. I’ll never sign on to another film again not knowing full well what it is.”
She also describes how high the level of security was in regards to keeping copies of the script from leaking.
We had to swap out every new set of pages with the old pages. They’re bright red, the scripts, and watermarked with our names. So, nobody wanted to be the one to accidentally leak it. They’re pretty hardcore about all of that. I don’t know how they’ve managed to keep it so secretive, though, because people obviously want to know more. And nobody knows anything. The speculation is very inaccurate.
We’ll find out if it was all worth it on January 18, 2008.
