Odette Yustman and Michael Stahl-David in Cloverfield courtesy Paramount Pictures
What new and scarier ways can we taunt the Big Apple — and scare the bejesus out of Manhattanites? Paramount wants to know. They've given director Matt Reeves a green light for a sequel to Cloverfield, the little monster movie that scared up $46 million over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, setting a new box-office record. They'll also reward Reeves' appetite for destruction by letting him direct another movie he wrote, The Invisible Woman, a Hitchcockian thriller about a former beauty queen who turns to crime to protect her family (as former beauty queens are wont to do). — Mickey O'ConnorPoll: Do you like the idea of a sequel? Vote here.
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Michael Stahl-David, Lizzy Caplan and Jessica Lucas in Cloverfield by Sam Emerson/Paramount Pictures
Looking for clues about Cloverfield, Lost executive producer J.J. Abrams' latest hush-hush project, which hits theaters Jan. 18? You're not alone. TV Guide spoke with director Matt Reeves — who collaborated with childhood buddy Abrams on TV's Felicity — and he coughed up a few details about the movie. For one, unlike Lost, the film will present a clear look at its creature. "It pays off. At the end of the day, you see everything," Reeves promises of the New York City-smashing beast. "It's a new monster, and it's enormous." Audiences should also be on the lookout for an in-joke reference to Slusho, a drink first referred to on Abrams' Alias. But perhaps the biggest twist is the decision to use all relative unknowns in the cast (including CSI newbie Jessica Lucas), which ruled out a rumored cameo by Heroes' Greg Grunberg, who has appeared in many of longtime pal Abrams' previous projects. "I wish I could tell you that Greg was in the movie, but unfortunately, he's not," Reev...
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"Smoke Monster Takes Manhattan"? A mysterious, Blair Witch-style trailer for a film titled Cloverfield and touted as "from producer J.J. Abrams" has the many folk catching Transformers intrigued. The film, directed by Felicity cocreator Matt Reeves and penned by Drew Goddard (Lost, Alias), is teased with a party scene set at a New York City bar, soon disrupted by the roar of some sort of monstrous entity, followed by flames and falling debris — including the head of the Statue of Liberty. According to the Reporter, Cloverfield features a cast of relative unknowns, including Lizzy Caplan (The Class), Michael Stahl-David (The Black Donnellys), Odet Jasmin and Mike Vogel. Copies of the trailer posted to the Internet, including at YouTube, are almost immediately being ordered down by threat of copyright infringment. A January 18 release date is listed in the trailer's sparse credits.
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