What is the post-9/11 panic movie created by J.J. Abrams, the legendary hit maker of “Cloverfield”?

It all started with his visit to Japan

The project was started by J.J. Abrams. The first name that appears in the trailer is not that of director Matt Reeves, but that of the producer. He gained attention for writing the screenplay for Armageddon (1998) and producing, directing and writing the TV drama LOST (2004-2010), and has directed Mission: Impossible III (2006), Star Trek (2009) and even Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). He is a hit maker who can silence any crying child, and is in charge of the epicenter of Hollywood hits, the production company BAD ROBOT.

The trigger for this film was when he came to Japan to promote "M:I:III" and went with his child to Kiddyland in Harajuku and saw a Godzilla figure. Everyone has forgotten about it now, but Godzilla was developed as a symbol of atomic power and war at the time, and it was a monster film with a strong journalism and Arrival, with themes such as whether scientific progress will bring happiness to humanity and how to counter powerful and irresistible forces.

He was impressed by the way monsters with such backgrounds were displayed as dolls in toy stores and had become a part of everyday life, and wanted to create a new monster movie that would be more acceptable to Americans.

Since Godzilla was already well-known in America, they had to avoid a similar structure in which a monster appears at the beginning and goes on a rampage, and soldiers and scientists rack their brains to defeat it. Also, it was obvious that a monster movie would have a hard time raising funds. So they came up with the idea to make a fake documentary using the POV (Point of View shot) method and shoot it on a low budget. It's shot from the point of view of an ordinary citizen, so they don't show too much of the situation. The monster is hard to see. It's all a completely different idea.

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This idea. It's pointless to say that this is everything, but I think the true value of this movie is that Hollywood has seriously tackled fake documentaries. Past big hits such as " The Blair Witch Project " (1999), which had a production budget of about 6.5 million yen, and " Paranormal Activity " (2007), which had a production budget of 1.6 million yen, were also completely unknown independent films that happened to become hits, and were not made with the aim of becoming a mega hit.

However, this film was made by J.J. Abrams, a rising Hollywood filmmaker, and was destined to be a hit. Although it was a low-budget film, it cost about 2.7 billion yen (it's true that they made it quite well with that budget). In fact, I think this is the kind of film the audience wanted to see. A high-quality fake documentary, something that is simply scary. One trailer shook up that unconscious feeling, and people's interest was immediately drawn to this film.

"Cloverfield" trailer

A long, shaky shot of a camcorder. Something huge comes flying from the skyscrapers with a thunderous roar, knocking over parked cars as it crashes in front of you. What falls is the head of the Statue of Liberty. The footage is so realistic and of such high quality that even a professional would have a hard time instantly determining how it was composed. Those who saw it in the cinema without knowing anything about it were blown away, while many Americans were left with a sense of déjà vu, with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks coming to mind.

Scenes other than monsters are the highlight