Cloverfield: has it created the start-of-year blockbuster?

Simon Brew

January has never been the place for big blockbuster films. Until Cloverfield turned up.

Published on Jan 30, 2008

Huge blockbuster hits aren’t supposed to happen this early in the year. Granted, Ghost Rider was a pre-Easter release in 2007 and cleaned up, and 300 came out earlier than most of its competition and became one of the year’s very biggest hits.

But Cloverfield came out in January in the States, a timeframe where the Star Wars reissue still held the opening weekend record with around $35m. But Cloverfield not only seized said record, with a $40m opening weekend, but it did it with no star power, a comparably modest production budget and – crucially – the best marketing campaign this side of The Dark Knight.

It was perhaps inevitable that during its second weekend it would lose most of its audience, especially given that the marketing was driven to get people to see it on day one. Thus, its second weekend gross of nearly $13m, down over 65%, wasn’t a big surprise. But with $64m in the bank already in the States, and $15m tallied up overseas (where its release is staggered over the next couple of weeks), Paramount are sitting very pretty. Not least because Cloverfield has DVD hit written all over it.

There’s not a movie studio in Hollywood who isn’t now looking at the previously moribund January release window as a possibility. Previously regarded as the time when the serious Oscar movies come in and make their money – and do see Juno, it’s brilliant – it opens up one of the last remaining timeslots when we haven’t been seeing blockbuster films in recent years.

We’ll see what happens in the years ahead, and cross our fingers for more movies that match the quality of Cloverfield. That, or there’s, ahem, always Ghost Rider 2…

Users Comments

Re: Cloverfield: has it created the start-of-year blockbuster?
Posted By kimkaze 1 February 9, 2008 01:02:09 PM

Someone needs to tell the director/script writer that Nokia batteries come DEAD when you purchase (or loot) them from a store. YOU need to charge them. They should have gone to www.knowyourmobile.com :) Also, battery life even on decent quality handycams wouldn't last the length of that film, especially using features such as night vision or the light on the front. Geek alert! :)