What is JJ Abram’s upcoming film actually about? The creator of Lost and Alias, and director of Mission Impossible 3 has a new trailer attached to the US release of Transformers. Shot in trendy realitic ’shakycam’, it starts off with a gratingly cliched leaving party (”He’s awesome!”, “He’s the man!”), but soon grabs your attention with a bowel-loosening roar, a mile-high explosion and the Statue of Liberty’s head getting chucked at a load of screaming yanks by an unseen beastie. Fecking awesome.

There’s no actual title given to the upcoming film, just an ominous “In Theatres 01-18-08″, which is a genius bit of marketing. Within seconds of the trailer’s official release, the Internet went into geek meltdown trying to second-guess what it’s all about. So far, it’s been said to be Godzilla 2, Ultraman, Watchmen, 80’s cartoon Voltron, a Lovecraftian adaptation focusing on impossibly nasty monster Cthulhu, a US version of The Host, a Lost spin-off, and, most popularly, a secret project about a giant parasite subtitled ‘Cloverfield’ shot entirely with handheld cams. Following the teaser’s release, Paramount launched the website “Ethan Haas Was Right” as part of a viral campaign to foment further interest in “Cloverfield”. The supposedly official website offered puzzles for visitors to solve, and solutions have been posted on various sites. Swinging the vote back towards the Lovecraft adaptation is the flashed-onscreen message before the puzzler loads:

“The great war of the gods will come upon the earth; the fires and terror of their rule will return for a time, but the children of the gods may be thus prepared, themselves aware and powerful…they may stand along side the gods not as equals, but as allies, feared and ready.”

Whatever. I say it’s the long-awaited adaptation of the day Jordan got knocked off his bike by the Black Arm of Snargle. In fact, if you look really really closely, you can see him cycling up the road in the distance. Bring it on!

01-18-08 Trailer
Ethan Haas was Right!
Ethan Haas was Wrong!
Wiki Page

Technorati Tags: Cloverfield, JJ Abrams, 01-18-08, HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Viral Marketing