Cloverfield

Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage monster film directed by Matt Reeves and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller (in his film debut), Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, and Odette Yustman. In the film, six friends attempt to flee from a monster that attacks New York City. Development began when producer J. J. Abrams started conceptualizing a monster movie and enlisted Neville Page to design the eventual creature, called Clover. In February 2007, the project was secretly greenlit by Paramount Pictures and produced by Abrams's Bad Robot. Principal photography took place in Los Angeles and New York City in 2007. The project had several working titles, including Slusho, Cheese, and Greyshot. As part of a viral marketing campaign, a teaser trailer was released ahead of screenings of Transformers (2007) without a title. The final title was revealed in a second teaser trailer attached to screenings of Beowulf (2007). With limited pre-release details, it garnered online speculation, including forums and websites dedicated to uncovering hidden information about the film. Several tie-ins, including a prequel manga series, were released as part of the marketing campaign. Cloverfield was released on January 18, 2008, and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Reeves's direction and the cinéma vérité style narrative. It earned $172.4 million worldwide at the box office against a $25 million budget. It is the first installment of the Cloverfield franchise, followed by 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016 and The Cloverfield Paradox in 2018. A direct sequel is in development.