Yahoo! Just The Facts on Cloverfield; Video of Cloverfield Monster

Yahoo! movies has started a new thing (or at least new to me) called "Just the facts" that give a breakdown on new and upcoming movies. On the list are movies like Jumper and Iron Man along with Cloverfield. Here's a sample of the info they provide for the user:

FACT ONE: It Came From Japan Producer J.J. Abrams took his son to a toy store in Japan and saw rows and rows of Godzilla toys. Feeling that the U.S. lacked a giant monster of its own, he decided to a make his own creature feature that would be filmed entirely through the point-of-view of the people on the ground, running for their lives.

FACT TWO: "Felicity" Fans Are in for a Shock Abrams picked his childhood friend Matt Reeves to direct the film. Together, they created Felicity, a show about young New Yorkers looking for love. But while the most exciting moment on that show was the time Keri Russell cut her hair, in this movie the entire city gets hacked to pieces.

FACT THREE: This Poster Doesn't Lie As a kid, Abrams loved Escape From New York. But he felt cheated that the image of the Statue of Liberty's head lying in the street on the movie's poster wasn't actually in the film. Abrams finally got to see it on the big screen in the teaser trailer that appeared before Transformers last summer.

Along with the breakdown of the movie is a clip from Cloverfield showing one of the attacks of the Cloverfield Monster. This scene shows the gang running head on into the Cloverfield Monster for the first time as they had uptown to rescue Beth. They seek cover as the military advances on the Cloverfield Monster and the gang ends up running down to the subway.

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LOST Resumes Filming; Terry O'Quinn Talks To Film Students

Terry O'Quinn is just such a great character actor that when I heard he was going to be on a new Television show back in 2004 I was immediately interested.

After years of bouncing around as supporting characters on such TV shows as X-Files, Millennium, and Alias, O'Quinn landed the role of a lifetime as the complex John Locke on the hit TV show Lost.

O'Quinn is a skilled theater actor who is still humbled by the attention that people pay to him. He recently sat down with some theater students at Illinois Wesleyan University who have the luck of having Terry's brother, Thomas, as their professor.

"Actor Terry O’Quinn is in an elite circle. Not just because millions of people tune in each week to see him on the hit ABC television series LOST, but because he can call himself that rare honor – a working actor.

“Work. Work when you can, any way you can,” said O’Quinn, sharing his insights on the acting profession to a room full of theatre students at Illinois Wesleyan University on Tuesday. The actor addressed three classes and an open forum Monday and Tuesday before returning to Hawaii to resume filming of the television show." (more)

After addressing the students for a couple of days, O'Quinn jumped a plane to head back to start shooting again for Lost. It's nice to hear confirmation that the production has started up again. With the writer's strike over the show has geared up to try to finish the season on time.

Lost Producer Carlton Cruse stated last month that they expect at most 13 episodes total. 8 episodes were finalized before the writer's strike halted production and 5 have aired so far.

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Matthew Fox Won’t Return To TV After Lost

Dr. Jack Shephard is retiring. Sorta. Matthew Fox, who plays the Doctor on the hit Television show Lost, is set to end his television career and focus solely on movies. After 2 hit series on TV for a combined total of 10 years so far, Fox stated that he enjoys his current place in the Lost puzzle but being tied down to a TV series means turning down multiple lucrative roles.

The irony is that many actors have said this before and many have failed at the transition to the big screen. The reason they get the chance to turn down killer movie roles is because they are on a popular TV show. No TV show and the phone doesn't ring. But Fox seems to take it in stride.

Lost star Matthew Fox is to quit TV when the hit show comes to an end in 2010.

The actor, 41, is delighted at the huge success of the J.J. Abrams-created show, but admits his work on Lost has forced him to turn down other, more lucrative movie roles.

"He says, "I am getting these cool offers now, and often I can’t take them because of my responsibilities to Lost. I’m well aware that the success of the show is a big part of why I’m getting the offers and so my priority is to the show.

"But I won’t be doing anymore television after Lost. That level of commitment to one character is just something I won’t do again." (source)

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Behind the Scenes Videos of Cloverfield

It's crazy how much detail in the movies goes unnoticed these days. Cloverfield was designed to have that "handheld" look to make the viewer believe it was shot with a camcorder in the streets of Manhattan. Truth is that a lot of work went into making a digital world in the streets of New York City. I found this link nestled into the forums at UnFiction which highlights the production of the movie.

The digital effects house Double Negative has some videos up that will probably make their way onto the Cloverfield DVD and hopefully the Blu-Ray disc as well. These short videos show the green screens and untouched footage of the movie. After a quick screening you'll get an understanding of how important Green Screens are to digital movies.

Double Negative's main task was to wreak destructive havoc upon New York City. Complex digital environments were built and then attacked with a variety of in-house CG tools. Key scenes involved creating well-known areas such as Park Avenue and high angle views across the city. A detailed digital model of the Brooklyn Bridge was built and then torn apart as refugees from the disaster attempt to flee the rampaging monster and, in the signature shot for the movie, the head of the Stature of Liberty was sent tumbling through the streets of Manhattan. (watch videos)

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The Rumor That Won't Go Away. Cloverfield 2 , Aladygma and Aliens

J.J. Abrams directs Matthew Fox in "Lost"

The Cloverfield 2 rumors continue to surface with the possibility that the codename of Aladygma is the code name for the Cloverfield sequel.

Aladygma (see original post: What's Aladygma) so far is just a rumor but the guys at Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams in particular, are known for using tactics like these to create projects in secret.

Fans are asking whether Aladygma is the potential Cloverfield sequel or a new sci-fi project by J.J. Abrams. There's a press release that surfaced the other day that links the Aladygma rumors to a top secret Alien project and a group that is dubbed "FTWSPACE" which has something to do with "following the white space."

"Maybe, it has absolutely nothing to do with a Cloverfield sequel, but “Aladygma” is all over the World a codename for something that somehow slipped into the news reports of the online film media. Nobody knows what "aladygma" really means, but the official Site shows some numbers: 00 | 11 | 22 | 88 . They Change in 00 | 11 | 28 | 28.

The only thing, that real UFO Fans know, is that 00 | 11 | 28 | 28 a codename for a actual top-secret UFO-Projekt. A Organisation, the "FTWSPACE" (Follow the White Space" is behind this UFO-Projekt. But it is unclear, if this is a real Story, or a Movie, or if this is really "aladygma". Aladygma, another Enygma of J.J. Abrams or what? Only one we know: Abrams has a vision par none, we can say he is a genius of Viral Marketing. (source)"

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New "The Dark Knight" Viral Campaign Launched

The viral websites for the upcoming Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" have been active for almost a year now. After the tragic death of Heath Ledger who plays the Joker in the film, the producers seemed to take a little time off of the viral work.

In the past there have been viral sites linked to the Joker as well as Harvey Dent and it looks like this week that the Harvey Dent site has updated.

According to ENI News:

A new Havery Dent viral marketing campaign for the upcoming "The Dark Knight" movie has begun over at ibelieveinharveydent.com.

The site states the following:

"WE HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE GOTHAM CITY. SOON YOU'LL FIND OUT HOW"

You can then sign-up with your email address. Once you do that you will get an email that says the following:

"Citizens of Gotham! The future of our city rests in your hands!

Alone, we are helpless against the thugs and killers menacing our city.

Together, we have the power to take back Gotham.

In just a few days, you'll find out how.

Keep an eye on http://www.ibelieveinharveydent.com -- and get ready to join a movement that will transform our city!

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Damon Lindelof On 'Star Trek XI' Date Change And Its Effects

Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions moved the opening date of the J.J. Abrams directed Star Trek XI film from the original date this Christmas to a May date the following year. There have been different reasons given as to why the sudden move of the opening dates that range from script rewrites that need the writer's strike to end first to the simple reason that the cast and crew just needed more time to meet the deadline.

Star Trek XI producer Damon Lindelof, who also is co-creator and head writer of the hit Television show Lost, took time to give his opinion on the change in dates.

"Moving Star Trek XI from December 2008 to May 2009 will have positive benefits, says Star Trek XI producer Damon Lindelof.

As reported by Trekmovie.com, according to Lindelof, based on Paramount's growing understanding of the movie, Star Trek XI was more appropriate for a summer release.

"It was being presented to J.J. [Abrams]," said Lindelof, "and I have been hearing the same thing from the studio, that based on the dailies they have been seeing and hanging out on the set and seeing and beginning to understand what the movie is, I think that they are starting to look at it as a big summer crowd-pleaser as opposed to a very sci-fi, not-as-accessible-to a-wider-audience Christmas release. So the reason that they have moved the release date is for their ability to market the film and sort of position it as the Pirates of the Caribbean for next summer."

There are other benefits to the later release. "On a budgetary level probably the most significant effect it will have is that we will not have to rush our post [production]," explained Lindelof. "As you might imagine there are a gazillion effects shots. I have seen some of the early work being done by ILM and [visual effects supervisor] Roger Guyett and it is nothing short of astonishing. So they’ll basically have more time to render those effects than they would have if we had to release it by Christmas. So that will probably make the movie a little less expensive to produce."

Lindelof also talked about how the move would affect the release of a full movie trailer. "Obviously the schedule is now going to change to accommodate the new release date," he said. "My guess is that the strategy will turn more into a slow burn. But at this point we also have to be cognizant of once the film is done, and the more we shoot the more likely it is to invite spoilers if we are holding everything back. So we still want to release those images. As far as for the first trailer trailer, I heard we were still on for the summer to have a full trailer for the movie. But I would not be surprised if they decide to hold that back."

Those working on Star Trek XI wanted to make the movie appealing both to long-term fans and yet attract a new audience. "When we all sat down and started to talk about whether or not we wanted to take on Trek, the question was very simple and that question has remained the same: do we think we can make it good?" said Lindelof. "And there is a way to make that movie where the fans will feel that literally four decades of storytelling and canon is not being ignored, but you make the movie so there is an access point for people who want to come in and hear the band for the first time, as it were. We talked about that and kicked some story ideas around and became totally infected with it." (source)

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