We just witnessed the formation of a new type of film industry...
The Superbowl is known for two things (other than the annual game itself): the half-time show and the new movie trailers shown during the commercials. As the most watched sporting event on Earth, the Superbowl regularly charges Hollywood studios millions of dollars so they can advertise trailers for the biggest films of the upcoming summer movie season. While Solo: A Star Wars Story, Mission Impossible: Fallout and Avengers: Infinity War ultimately took their crowns as best of the bunch, it was a certain Cloverfield franchise that made the biggest impact as Netflix decided to simultaneously announce the series' third installment, debut its first mysterious teaser trailer and drop the film for all to immediately watch.
The move, which many have dubbed "pulling a Beyonce" due to the singer's 2013 surprise album release on iTunes, was unprecedented for a Hollywood tent-pole release and has the capacity to change feature film releases forever, but let's take it back to the beginning of this production to figure out where it takes us going forward.
The Cloverfield Paradox is a film by Paramount Studios, one of Hollywood's original 'Big 8' film studios which also includes Disney, Fox, Sony, Universal and MGM. Paramount has, for a few years now, been struggling to compete against Disney, Universal and Warner Bros, all of whom consistently top the overall yearly box-office gross; in 2017, for example, the studio made just 6% of the overall box office, compared to Disney's 31% estimation. Because of this, the studio has for a while been forced into making greater creative risks with their film production, and the Cloverfield franchise is emblematic of that.
The original Cloverfield was released in 2008 and sported a mysterious advertisement campaign that echoed the likes of The Blair Witch Project. Jumping onto the 'found footage' directorial trend that was at the time at the height of its popularity, the film documented an evening in the life of a New Yorker who's work party was interrupted by a kaiju-like monster rampaging through Manhattan. The film wasn't flawless, but it generated huge buzz and a cult following from it's horrific realism and unanswered mysteries.
J.J. Abrams, a director/producer contracted to Paramount studios, was behind the cult-hit, and went on to kick-start the studios' Star Trek reboot (as well as being bought out by Disney and Lucasfilm to direct Star Wars Episode 7). The producer then went on to help create a low budget thriller known as The Cellar, and under J.J's 'Bad Robot' production company it was re-christened as 10 Cloverfield Lane - a spiritual successor to 2008's first film. With just one trailer released weeks before it's theatrical release, the franchise established itself as a surprising and unpredictable one, and intense online fervour and curiosity led 10 Cloverfield Lane being one of the most financially successful films of 2016.
Around the same time of 10 Cloverfield Lane's 2016 theatrical run, Paramount was busy making another sci-fi flick: The God Particle. The groundbreaking, woman-of-colour-led science fiction film was, somewhere along its production, altered by Abrams to retro-actively fit into the Cloverfield universe. The obscure project starring Black Mirror's Gugu Mbatha-Raw as it's lead was quietly sold off to Netflix in 2017's Sundance film festival, and while industry trades had expected The God Particle to debut a trailer during the hugely popular sporting event's commercials, nobody had anticipated it's inclusion into the Cloverfield timeline nor the fact that it would be the movie along with the trailer that would make its debut that day.
Director of Netflix's 13th and Selma Ava Du'Vernay went onto Twitter to cryptically discuss her anticipation for the surprise reveal just before the game, staying everything was about to change. The trailer's airing then allowed her to celebrate J.J's groundbreaking release plan as well as the game-changing inclusion of characters of colour within the high-profile science fiction film. She herself directly compared the release of The Cloverfield Paradox to Beyonce's latest two album releases, with her tweeting the film was out now and "straight to the people, Lemonade-style" with reference to Beyonce's Lemonade film that aired on HBO two years ago.
The film has, unfortunately, received a varied response from social media and critics. While many adored the audacity of Abrams' production company and Netflix for teaming up for the surprise release, it is hard to argue that the film itself is more akin to an average Black Mirror episode than an exceptional cinematic masterpiece. It is now heavily speculated that Paramount agreed to sell the film to Netflix in a last-ditch effort to make its budget back on the movie; if the film was released in cinemas it would have been unlikely to make its money back due to its average quality.
It's hard to know on what level this will affect future releases for theatrical films. Beyonce's surprise album changed the gam because it was so good; her self-titled album wouldn't have changed the music industry as we know it (with mega-stars like Ed Sheeran, Future, Jay Z, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift and U2 all adopting the surprise release format) if audiences hadn't initially been conditioned to expect a quality product after an unexpected release. Perhaps if Netflix had dropped a film that was universally received as successful, the trend of surprise movie releases would be secured as the next Hollywood craze. Now, though, the next time Netflix surprise releases a major film it is unkikely to replicate the same anticipatory buzz. All we can do now is wait to see whether Abrams and Netflix have completely changed the game, but it's certainly possible, and the idea that a major film can be suddenly released at any time in the years to come is as exciting as it is inevitable.
As for Cloverfield 4? It's actually already finished filming, with a World War 2 setting promising for spectacle and thrills. I guess it could come at any time now, so stay tuned and stay alert. Regardless of the quality of product released during Superbowl Sunday, the game has changed, and we were here to see it happen.
Written by James Green
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