It's rare that a movie is clouded in as much secrecy as J.J. Abrams' big monster movie, but that may just be a big smokescreen. CHUD is reporting an early leak of the first trailer, set to debut with Beowulf on November 16, and the secret codename the project was given is apparently the actual name of the film: Cloverfield.
All we know is that monsters attack New York, and that apparently Abrams was inspired after taking his son to a store in Japan and seeing a bunch of Godzilla toys. He apparently thought America needed its own giant death monster, which is an argument that holds water, because of how godawful the attempt to import Godzilla was, although I personally still hold Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin responsible for that particular travesty, and I continue to be incensed that either of those two ever get jobs in movies. It could have worked, blast it!
Anyway, the trailer seems to be a bit worrisome, because it follows the same mold of having a giant monster and a bunch of little monsters, but we're also led to believe that it's a completely original creature, so no one in the crowd will be yelling "Godzilla doesn't lay eggs, you jerks!" That said, it also needs to watch out for falling into the other trap Emmerich did - ripping off The Lost World. Honestly, it was as if they just shoved in a few reels of Spielberg's Jurassic Park sequel right in the middle and CG'd Matthew "I Left My Talent In My Other Pants" Broderick over Jeff Goldblum.
Still, it's been a while since there's been a great giant monster movie that wasn't a remake of a classic, like King Kong. Abrams seems savvy enough so far to know how to pull this off correctly. Don't prove me wrong, Double J.
