1-18-08 Project Cloverfield - Warning! Spoilers

Simon Pegg has reassured 'Star Trek' fans by declaring the USS Enterprise is in good hands under the leadership of director JJ Abrams.

The 'Shaun of The Dead' star has signed on to play Scotty in the much-anticipated 'Star Trek' prequel and insists he wouldn't be in the film if he thought Trekkers would be upset by it.

He says: "Star Trek is very precious to a lot of people and they want it to be right. As a Star Trek fan, I would want the film to be made by a Star Trek fan if I wasn't in the film and it is being made by a fan. (...more)

Here's some more images, including the back artwork, of the upcoming DVD release for Cloverfield scheduled for release on April 22.

The rumored date for a new Dark Knight trailer has come and gone. There was some speculation that the latest trailer for the Batman sequel was going to appear online at a Taste For The Theatrical, a viral website centering around the Joker.

So, when will the trailer come out? Charlie wrote in with his theory:

"The number it gives on the left of the screen is "28". It also says "sunday" on the right. My guess is that the movie trailer will air on the weekend of the 28th of march."

Movieweb.com has broken the news that the Cloverfield DVD hits shelves on April 22nd. Here are some of the extra features listed by Movieweb that will appear on the discs:


Special Features
- Commentary: Commentary by Director Matt Reeves
- Featurette: The Making of Cloverfield
- Featurette: Cloverfield Visual Effects
- Featurette: I Saw It! It's Alive! It's Huge
- Featurette: Clover Fun
- Additional Scenes: Congrats Rob
- Additional Scenes: When You're in Japan
- Additional Scenes: I Call That a Date
- Additional Scenes: It's Going to Hurt
- Additional Scenes: Alt Ending #1
- Additional Scenes: Alt Ending #2

The release of a Cloverfield DVD is rumored to be around April 15th or 22nd. Paramount's none to happy about the leaked rumor that they are rushing an unfinished Blu-ray to the market for Cloverfield. But what about the standard Cloverfield DVD?

Cinema Blend has gotten a hold of what may be the DVD packaging (standard definition) of the new Cloverfield DVD. This subtle DVD boldly doesn't use the iconic Statue of Liberty poster from the movie which might suggest this could be the packaging of a special edition or 2-disc set.

The market for the Blu-ray/HD-DVD is still a small percentage of the sales which means those who are still buying standard DVD's need a copy. I've heard rumblings of a cool 2 Disc DVD (standard format) being available when Cloverfield hits the market. The idea is to give the viewer all the viral marketing along with some new storylines to fill in a few questions left over.

All the viral works and clips like the Chuai Station and Jamie and Teddy (yes, I've been informed it is part of the Cloverfield world) will be available along with some commentary and behind the scenes stuff. All in all it sounds like the ultimate fans dream disc. Let's just hope it sees the light of day.

On my Speed Racer sister site there's a brand new trailer which is chock-full of cartoon goodness. The Speed Racer movie is due out May 9th and is made by the Wachowski Brothers (Matrix, V for Vendetta) which features a special, multi-layered digital camera that will give Speed Racer a full-focus look to capture that anime spirit.

A cryptic message has been uploaded to ATasteForTheTheatrical, a viral site for the new Batman movie. The message osted next to a faux ad for a mobile home trailer reads:

The Hasbro website has updated their Cloverfield Monster toy with new pictures and an audio clip of the Cloverfield Monsters roar (embedded below). For about $100 you'll get:

* 70 points of articulation and incredible life-like detail
* Authentic sound
* 14" tall
* 10 parasites
* Two interchangeable heads
* Statue of Liberty head accessory
* Special collector’s edition packaging

Yahoo! movies has started a new thing (or at least new to me) called "Just the facts" that give a breakdown on new and upcoming movies. On the list are movies like Jumper and Iron Man along with Cloverfield. Here's a sample of the info they provide for the user:

Terry O'Quinn is just such a great character actor that when I heard he was going to be on a new Television show back in 2004 I was immediately interested.

After years of bouncing around as supporting characters on such TV shows as X-Files, Millennium, and Alias, O'Quinn landed the role of a lifetime as the complex John Locke on the hit TV show Lost.

O'Quinn is a skilled theater actor who is still humbled by the attention that people pay to him. He recently sat down with some theater students at Illinois Wesleyan University who have the luck of having Terry's brother, Thomas, as their professor.

Dr. Jack Shephard is retiring. Sorta. Matthew Fox, who plays the Doctor on the hit Television show Lost, is set to end his television career and focus solely on movies. After 2 hit series on TV for a combined total of 10 years so far, Fox stated that he enjoys his current place in the Lost puzzle but being tied down to a TV series means turning down multiple lucrative roles.

The irony is that many actors have said this before and many have failed at the transition to the big screen. The reason they get the chance to turn down killer movie roles is because they are on a popular TV show. No TV show and the phone doesn't ring. But Fox seems to take it in stride.

It's crazy how much detail in the movies goes unnoticed these days. Cloverfield was designed to have that "handheld" look to make the viewer believe it was shot with a camcorder in the streets of Manhattan. Truth is that a lot of work went into making a digital world in the streets of New York City. I found this link nestled into the forums at UnFiction which highlights the production of the movie.

The digital effects house Double Negative has some videos up that will probably make their way onto the Cloverfield DVD and hopefully the Blu-Ray disc as well. These short videos show the green screens and untouched footage of the movie. After a quick screening you'll get an understanding of how important Green Screens are to digital movies.

J.J. Abrams directs Matthew Fox in "Lost"

"Maybe, it has absolutely nothing to do with a Cloverfield sequel, but “Aladygma” is all over the World a codename for something that somehow slipped into the news reports of the online film media. Nobody knows what "aladygma" really means, but the official Site shows some numbers: 00 | 11 | 22 | 88 . They Change in 00 | 11 | 28 | 28.

The only thing, that real UFO Fans know, is that 00 | 11 | 28 | 28 a codename for a actual top-secret UFO-Projekt. A Organisation, the "FTWSPACE" (Follow the White Space" is behind this UFO-Projekt. But it is unclear, if this is a real Story, or a Movie, or if this is really "aladygma". Aladygma, another Enygma of J.J. Abrams or what? Only one we know: Abrams has a vision par none, we can say he is a genius of Viral Marketing. (source)"

The viral websites for the upcoming Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" have been active for almost a year now. After the tragic death of Heath Ledger who plays the Joker in the film, the producers seemed to take a little time off of the viral work.

In the past there have been viral sites linked to the Joker as well as Harvey Dent and it looks like this week that the Harvey Dent site has updated.

According to ENI News:

Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions moved the opening date of the J.J. Abrams directed Star Trek XI film from the original date this Christmas to a May date the following year. There have been different reasons given as to why the sudden move of the opening dates that range from script rewrites that need the writer's strike to end first to the simple reason that the cast and crew just needed more time to meet the deadline.

Star Trek XI producer Damon Lindelof, who also is co-creator and head writer of the hit Television show Lost, took time to give his opinion on the change in dates.

"Moving Star Trek XI from December 2008 to May 2009 will have positive benefits, says Star Trek XI producer Damon Lindelof.

As reported by Trekmovie.com, according to Lindelof, based on Paramount's growing understanding of the movie, Star Trek XI was more appropriate for a summer release.

"It was being presented to J.J. [Abrams]," said Lindelof, "and I have been hearing the same thing from the studio, that based on the dailies they have been seeing and hanging out on the set and seeing and beginning to understand what the movie is, I think that they are starting to look at it as a big summer crowd-pleaser as opposed to a very sci-fi, not-as-accessible-to a-wider-audience Christmas release. So the reason that they have moved the release date is for their ability to market the film and sort of position it as the Pirates of the Caribbean for next summer."

There are other benefits to the later release. "On a budgetary level probably the most significant effect it will have is that we will not have to rush our post [production]," explained Lindelof. "As you might imagine there are a gazillion effects shots. I have seen some of the early work being done by ILM and [visual effects supervisor] Roger Guyett and it is nothing short of astonishing. So they’ll basically have more time to render those effects than they would have if we had to release it by Christmas. So that will probably make the movie a little less expensive to produce."

Lindelof also talked about how the move would affect the release of a full movie trailer. "Obviously the schedule is now going to change to accommodate the new release date," he said. "My guess is that the strategy will turn more into a slow burn. But at this point we also have to be cognizant of once the film is done, and the more we shoot the more likely it is to invite spoilers if we are holding everything back. So we still want to release those images. As far as for the first trailer trailer, I heard we were still on for the summer to have a full trailer for the movie. But I would not be surprised if they decide to hold that back."

Those working on Star Trek XI wanted to make the movie appealing both to long-term fans and yet attract a new audience. "When we all sat down and started to talk about whether or not we wanted to take on Trek, the question was very simple and that question has remained the same: do we think we can make it good?" said Lindelof. "And there is a way to make that movie where the fans will feel that literally four decades of storytelling and canon is not being ignored, but you make the movie so there is an access point for people who want to come in and hear the band for the first time, as it were. We talked about that and kicked some story ideas around and became totally infected with it." (source)