Movies
Matt Reeves Talks ‘Cloverfield’ Sequel Ideas and Delay
It still comes as a shock to me that nearly a year after the success of Cloverfield that the announced sequel isn’t already in production. Beyond the massive DVD and Blu-ray sales, the movie made over $170m worldwide at the box office on a modest $25m budget. Inside you can read director Matt Reeves update on the delay, which continues to be blamed on finding “the right story”. Sounds ridiculous to me.
Reeves says that talks have been frequent if sporadic over the last nine months. “At times it’s gone dormant and then its come back up again,” Reeves tells MTV of the brainstorming over a sequel.
“There are a couple ideas that have potential but we haven’t quite cracked it yet,” says Reeves. Trying to pin down just what those “Cloverfield” sequel ideas are though is easier said than done. One thought was to return to the source of the inspiration for the film. “When we were in Japan we thought, wouldn’t it be cool to do it here,” he said.
One things seems certain. Don’t expect a traditional sequel picking up right after the first with the same (still living) characters. Rather the filmmakers behind the hit film have discussed a sequel that “wasn’t necessarily right after that night but had intersections with the original.”
He also reveals that instead of directing the film, they might bring some new, young talent into the fold and J.J. and Reeves would produce the sequel.
As for ever seeing another monster attack, the story just keeps coming back to “if the story is right,” which sounds more like an excuse than anything. It’s looking more like they’ll work on it when they have free time. Right now J.J. Abrams is finishing up his STAR TREK film, while Reeves has a remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and THE INVISIBLE WOMAN on his plate.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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