Cloverfield
The last great movie mystery born from a teaser with no title, just a date: 1-18-08. Message boards dissected every frame for months before anyone knew what it was.
Cloverfield released January 18, 2008, directed by Matt Reeves and produced by J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk. The viral campaign began in July 2007 when an untitled teaser attached to Transformers showed a going-away party interrupted by an explosion and the Statue of Liberty's head rolling down a street. A single date appeared: 1-18-08. The mystery sprawled across the internet—a 1-18-08.com website with time-stamped photos, MySpace profiles for the fictional characters, websites for the Tagruato corporation and Slusho! drink. The internet theorized frantically.
The film itself was found footage: six friends fleeing a monster attacking New York City, captured on a single handheld camera. Made on a budget of $25–30 million, Cloverfield grossed $172.4 million worldwide with a $40.1 million opening weekend—the biggest January opening ever at the time. It later spawned a loose anthology franchise, but the original's pre-smartphone mystery—the feeling of frame-by-frame analysis and message-board theories—defined a moment that wouldn't return.
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