Quick update on Netflix’s Daredevil: Drew Goddard (director of Cabin in the Woods; Cloverfield, World War Z, Buffy, Angel, Alias, Lost writer) has signed on to write and direct the first episode of the Netflix/Marvel live-action original series. He will also serve as series showrunner and executive producer across all 13 episodes that are set to debut on the streaming service in 2015.
Daredevil is one of four Marvel superhero series coming to Netflix (Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage are also on the way) and they will all culminate in an Avengers-style mini-series event dubbed The Defenders. Picking up Goddard is a great way to start this massive project; the writer/director/producer is widely accepted by fanboys and girls for his work on Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams classics.
At long last, Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods is going to see the light of day. The director of The Avengers teamed up with Cloverfield helmer Drew Goddard to produce a horror flick originally slated to release in 2009. Due to MGM’s filing for bankruptcy, the film was shelved indefinitely. Thankfully Lionsgate came to the rescue and agreed to distribute it.
The Cabin in the Woods involves a group of good-looking teens who decide to spend a weekend at a vacant cabin to let loose and party. And then bad things happen. It’s a situation we’ve heard time and time again, but as the tagline hints, “You think you know the story.” Yeah, I went ahead and added the emphasis. Whedon, who produced and co-wrote with director Goddard, says it’s “a straight-up, balls-out, really terrifying horror movie…it is not just a slasher in the woods. It’s a little more complicated than that…” And if you screen the trailer above, you’ll see what he means by that. Sure, these kids are getting tortured just like in the classics (and the awful remakes I must admit), but the story is twisted and elevated a few notches higher when it starts to involve creepy voyeurs and a honeycomb-like forcefield that’s keeping the gang from escaping the woods. Will it rise above the recent slew of crappy horror flicks? With Whedon and Goddard behind the words and direction, I have no doubt The Cabin in the Woods will be a suspenseful thrill ride worth the price of admission. I’ve only watched this trailer like ten times and I’m ready to wait in line!
The Cabin in the Woods, which can now be considered a horror/sci-fi mashup, makes its way to theatres April 13, 2012. It stars Dollhouse alum Fran Kranz and Amy Acker, along with Tom Lenk (Buffy, Angel), Jesse Williams, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, Brian White, and a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth. Want to know what else is intriguing about all this? Big-name stars Richard Jenkins (Let Me In) and Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) are no where to be found in this trailer. Chew on that for a while. Then take a look at the trippy movie poster after the break. Continue reading Trailer: ‘The Cabin in the Woods’→
J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield is a great film that emphasizes shrouded mystery, unique camera work, spectacular special effects, and an intriguing and original story with believable characters. There is no way Abrams and crew (including producer Bryan Burk, director Matt Reeves, and writer Drew Godderd) could leave this franchise to waste after one film; especially that there is so much unused backstory material from all the viral marketing used to hype the movie way back when.
The crew on a potential sequel in the works…
Reeves: “While we were on set making the film we talked about the possibilities and directions of how a sequel can go. The fun of this movie was that it might not have been the only movie being made that night, there might be another movie! In today’s day and age of people filming their lives on their camera phones and Handycams, uploading it to YouTube… That was kind of exciting thinking about that.”
“There’s a moment on the Brooklyn Bridge, and there was a guy filming something on the side of the bridge, and Hud sees him filming and he turns over and he sees the ship that’s been capsized and sees the headless Statue of Liberty, and then he turns back and this guy’s briefly filming him. In my mind that was two movies intersecting for a brief moment, and I thought there was something interesting in the idea that this incident happened and there are so many different points of view, and there are several different movies at least happening that evening and we just saw one piece of another. That idea sort of tickled me.”
“The idea of doing something so differently is exhilarating. We hope that it created a movie experience that is different. The thing about doing a sequel is that I think we all really feel protective of that experience. The key here will be if we can find something that is compelling enough and that is different enough for us to do, then it will probably be worth doing. Obviously it also depends on how Cloverfield does worldwide and all of those things too, but really, for us creatively, we just want to find something that would be another challenge.”
Burk: “The creative team has fleshed out an entire backstory which, if we’re lucky, we might get to explore in future films.”
Abrams: “It would be a totally different kind of thing but it’s too early to talk about.”
As you can clearly see, there areideas floating around about what a sequel to Cloverfield can entail. Focusing on the backstory of the monster and changing up the style of the way the movie is portrayed to audiences seems to be the two big concepts to take away from the sequel jabber. Also, let me remind you that Cloverfield did leave some questions at the end of the film in two instances. (1) In the final scene of the film (the recording at Coney Island) a quick camera shot reveals a large object falling into the ocean. It has been oft-confirmed that this object was a satellite and that the excavation of said satillite woke up the monster who “[has] been down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years.” [J.J. Abrams] (2) Loyal fans of Abrams and Cloverfield (yeah, that’s me) who waited out the end credits to see if there was a reveal at the very end heardquite the treat. An unknown person whispers softly “It’s still alive.” When played backwards the audio plays “Help us.” {Listen below.} All in all, I would place all bets on a sequel coming to theatres soon. Let the crazy detailed viral marketing and hype begin!
Oh wait…what’s this? It seems as if viral marketing as started for Cloverfield 2. Although it is has not been confirmed as an official video for a sequel, and many speculate it may be fan-created, this video is still quite the treat for the Cloverfield following. Today a video was uploaded to YouTube titled “そこに何ですか？- R U THERE?” by abcharu21. It contains shaky-cam scenes from what appears to be Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, CA, bizarre cuts to a father playing with his Asian baby, a shot of what may be the monster terrorizing civilians, and it ends with a quick shot of a street sign that reads “Cloverfield.” Though it may very well be a user-generated video, it seems too authentic to me. Check it out below and let the hype begin all over again.
