Rated-M.us: 1-18-08 Untitled J.J. Abrams Project "Cloverfield" information and videos!

1-18-08 Untitled J.J. Abrams Project "Cloverfield" information and videos!

Posted by Jason Triplett Saturday, September 08, 2007

There has been a swirl of mystery around the new J.J. Abrams film, but who wouldn't expect that after the success of Lost and it's internet entities? Like Lost, Abrams is using the internet for viral marketing.

And it's working.

ARG's, or Alternate Reality Games, are a growing way for game developers and film exectutives to get the buzz they are looking for. From Bungie with the Halo related "ilovebees" to Abrams' ingenious Lost ARG, it's evident that this form of advertising is effective.

So I bring you to this film. It doesn't have a name, but we know it is a monster movie. My sources tell me that the monster is original, not someone else's IP. So all you Voltron geeks, I'm sorry. This just ain't it. No Godzilla either.

In fact, my source tells me that the final design of the monster has not yet been decided. Well if I was Abrams, I wouldn't tell anyone, not even the cast, what it looked like unless I wanted it to get leaked out. Let's face it. Stars leak things too.

The origin of the monster is said to be Japan. One of the main characters is wearing a Slusho shirt. Japan is where the Slusho drink is manufactured. Another of the main characters is leaving for a job in Japan. A Slusho job? The history of the Slusho company involves finding some secret ingredient from the deepest parts of the sea.

The official Website. Currently if you go there, you can click and move around 5 or 6 different photos. None of them reveal much, other than a distinct timeline of what happened. This closely follows the footage from the trailer. Also, if you click on the corner of the photos and drag real fast, you can flip the photos over. Some of them have writing. If you leave the official website open for at least 6 minutes, you will hear the monster's roar.

The official Slusho website. Confirmed by Abrams' camp to be connected to the film. Pretty nifty little Flash site with a lot of interesting revelations. Particularly in the "History" section. A quick read-through lends more to the "monster from the sea, upset by Slusho" theory.

Abrams' camp has had to debunk a few faked viral sites claiming to be connected. Aside from the two confirmed official ones, there are these official MySpace pages:

Beth McIntrye - 26, seems to be looking for Mr. Right
Rob Hawkins - "Robbie", 26
Hudson Platt - "Platt", 26, comic book geek and probably the group clown. Sadly I can identify every character in the background pics used for his page.
Lily Ford - 26, very liberal, maybe the loud opinionated character.
Marlena Diamond - 26, not sure what type she is.
Jamie Rascano - 25, the party girl of the group.
JJ Hawkins - 28, guessing the "J" from the flipped pics because the writing is so different from Jamie.

Before we leave you, we'd like to share with you the awesome trailer as well as a photo leaked from the set. The photo comes from http://1-18-08.livejournal.com/. You can visit there for a few more shots of the set.