Upcoming film Cloverfield is due for release on January 18th, but has already left a myriad of clues, confusion and mystery in its wake. Here’s a timeline of the important dates and information so far.
February 2007 – Green light for the film. Abrams on board. Secret auditions begin
June – Shooting begins
3rd July – Teaser trailer airs before Transformers in American previews. No title, simply the release date 1st January 2008. Given the codename “Cloverfield”
3rd July – 1-18-08.com launches with merely a shot from party from the start of the teaser
6th July – EthanHaasWasRight.com launches to a huge buzz of publicity. Solving the website’s mysterious puzzles reveals mysterious videos from Van Mantra. Widely rumoured to be linked to Cloverfield
6th July – Still of two scared female faces added to 1-18-08.com
9th July – Producer J. J. Abrams claims Cloverfield has nothing to do with Ethan Haas
10th July – Slusho.jp launches, the website for a Japanese squishie style drink with a mysterious secret deep sea ingredient and the catchphrase “you can’t drink just six”. The Slusho! logo now recognisable on the T-shirt of a character in the teaser
12th July – New photo posted on 1-18-08.com, a mysterious white smoke filled scene with people covering their mouths
20th July – New photo on 1-18-08.com with a soldier and scared pedestrian
24th July – “Monstrous” rumoured as the official title
27th July – At Comic Con, Abrams says the film is not called “Monstrous” and hands out Slusho! T-shirts, explaining the idea for the film was inspired by Japanese toys, especially Godzilla but reveals no other details. Publicity packs are released with a serious of four mini posters, one with “Monstrous” as the top explaining the rumour, others with “Furious” and “Terrifying”, one other poster is without a title
27th July – New photo on 1-18-08.com, a still from party time stamped as second in sequence. The photos can now be more freely moved around and flipped to reveal messages on back
27th July – MySpace pages set up for all of the lead characters
27th July – Major updates to the Slusho! website, now has an online store and flavour mixing game
31st July – “Spy” footage from the Cloverfield set is released
1st August – CNBC claim Cloverfield could be called “Overnight” after the same attorney who trademarked “Slusho!” trademarks “Overnight”
2nd August – EthanHaasWasRight.com now links to an RPG called Alpha Omega developed by Mind Storm Labs
7th August – Photos taken of the Cloverfield set in Central Park. On the public notice the film is called “Cheese”
8th August – NY Magazine visit the Cloverfield set and release “major spoilers”. They claim the film ends under a bridge in Central Park with Rob and Beth hiding under a bridge after getting their hands on a call sheet
9th August – Paramount send out a cease and desist notice for any stories on the “Cheese” call sheet leak
10th August – Orders from Slusho! shipped with Japanese newspaper
21st August – Slusho! start “Happy Talk” on their website
24th August – The 1-18-08.com website goes down for a while, coming back online with no apparent changes but after 6 minutes breaks the silence with a loud monster roar
4th September – Various MySpace updates; Jamie’s page mentions a person called Teddy Hanson
10th September – JamieAndTeddy.com launched, includes secret video of Jamie
29th September – A new photo of a Japanese chef appears on 1-18-08.com and flips over to reveal a noodle recipe using “deep sea nectar”
29th September – Tagruato.jp launches, a deep sea drilling organisation, opening a drilling station near New York in early September called Chuai. Tagruato is the parent company of Slusho!
3rd October – The Tagruato website is updated with contact information and a Japanese telephone number routing through to a recorded message
4th October – New video of Jamie up on JamieAndTeddy.com; she has received a gift from Teddy but has been instructed not to open is until December 9th
5th October – More “happy talk” on Slusho.jp
13th October – Slusho! start “recruiting” workers through parent organisation Tagruato. Employees will be trained in how to “preserve the flavour of our special ingredient, Seabed Nectar”
18th October – New video on JamieAndTeddy.com
29th October – Actor playing HUD, TJ Miller, who is “operating the camera” for the majority of the film, reveals the auditions were blind, each actor said yes to the project without seeing the script and when he receive the script it only covered his part
7th November – New Slusho “happy talk”
12th November – New video on JamieAndTeddy.com, she reveals Teddy is away for “the cause”
15th November – Interview with Lizzy Caplan who plays Marlena Diamond; she explains how the scripts were swapped out every time they moved on to a new set and each script was watermarked on different coloured paper for each actor
16th November – New trailer airs with Beowulf screenings, confirming the title as “Cloverfield”. There is a glimpse of the monster in the trailer, standing at around 350m tall. Towards the end a woman also appears to “expand”
16th November – Official posters and stands start popping up in cinemas
22nd November – Tagruato website is updated denoting claims by the Ravaille Research Center that Slusho!’s secret “seabed nectar” ingredient is dangerous to human health. The original report by the “Ravaille Research Center” details the “nectar” does have “restorative powers” as Tagruato claim, however, direct exposure brings accelerated cell growth, increased strength, increased soft muscle tissue growth, sharper eyesight and a feeling around your body like a “wave of happiness”. They also notes that Slusho! is to be imported into the USA
23rd November – Tagruato’s voicemail is updated announcing their recall of subsidiary ParafFun wax
24th November – Tagruato’s website is “hacked”. The title changed to “TAGRUATO IS DESTROYING OUR OCEANS” and the regular photo is changed, adding devil horns CEO Ganu Yoshida, a wave destroying a city and several sea life creatures. Embedded onto each creature is a roman numeral, and if you take the first letter from each of their names in order, plus the wave, TIDOWave.com is exposed. The new website is for environmental activist group Les Guerriers de Mère-Terre (The Warriors of Mother Earth) founded by notorious conservationist Les Bandit Vert (The Green Bandit)
26th November – Slusho! appears on Heroes
27th November – Tagruato subsidiary Bold Futura launches a satellite and hires student scientists, including a deep sea ecosystem specialist
28th – Slusho! hoodies are added to their online store. New orders also now ship with a torn “Top Secret” Tagruato memo reporting an “incident” at the Chuai drilling station near New York. On the rear is a hand written note from a “whistle blower” claiming the Chuai station “hides a dark secret”.
29th November – Official website at CloverfieldMovie.com is launched
30th November – The Tagruato voicemail is change to a notice of a memorial service for one of their biologists. TidoWave.com reports the biologist made a “magnificent discovery” before he retired but his computer and files are “no where to be found”
4th December – “Cruel-etin board” launched on the TIDOWave website with some dark secrets about Tagruato
4th December – Various MySpace character page updates
5th December – Slusho! contest launched for fans to make an advert for Slusho!, the winner will receive a stylised laptop
6th December – Wacky Slusho! commercial is posted
9th December – New video found on JamieAndTeddy.com; after first complaining about not hearing from him for a while, Jamie opens the gift from Teddy. In the box is a Slusho! cap and a note claiming that if she opens it before they’ve spoken, he has been captured by Tagruato, telling her to wait to hear from “Randy” and not call the authorities or try to contact him. Someone called Randy previously posted the story on TIDOWave.com about the dead biologist
10th December – Three new blogs appear on TIDOWave.com, one claiming a repeat “event” on the 14th, and to contact Randy for more information
14th December – The Cloverfield widget contest is launched requiring fans to “grab” the widget from other fan’s website and post it on their own, with the website with the most “grabs” winning hometown screening of the film
14th December – In an interview, director Matt Reeves say a lot of inspiration came from the poster image for Escape from New York of a decapitated Statue of Liberty, although it wasn’t used actually in that film. He also confirms the connection between Cloverfield and Slusho!
17th December – In an interview with Michael Stahl-David, he say his character Rob spends the whole film trying to get to a girl he’s been in love with for years
17th December – When interviewed, producer Bryan Burk said their intention was to make America’s answer to Japan’s Godzilla
18th December – TV spots begin, using the tagline “something has found us”
18th December – New blog on TIDOWave reporting there was a problem with the “event” and “Randy and the others” have gone missing. “Backup desperately needed”
18th December – An email is sent out by the Tagruato whistleblower through 18kagashimad@tagruato.jp. The message includes a Tagruato financial statement with a hand written proclamation of “Americans, no oil here! They must have known before they built!”. The statement also is missing financial data for the Chuai station, possibly confirming it was built for alternate purposes
19th December – Rob updates his MySpace blog, detailing that he has given up on long term will they, won’t they target Beth and wants to move on and find a new job away from New York
20th December – Cloverfield’s official MySpace film and Facebook pages are launched with a competition on the latter
21st December – Cloverfield guerrilla marketing is spotted with chalk writing on the pavements across San Francisco
23rd December – The Cloverfield widget now has a built in quiz
26th December – The sixth video on JamieAndTeddy.com watches Jamie as she calls Tagruato, fed up of waiting for him, but she gets no where and afterwards they mysteriously call her back
28th December – Beth leaves Rob a message on his MySpace page wishing him good luck for his upcoming job interview
29th December – A new message is sent out by the Tagruato whistle blower, this time with one of two radar images attached. The radar appears to be tracking something and dated as the 18th December.
There will be a full timeline and review in upcoming issue 10, due out mid January.
(special thanks to CloverfieldClues.com)