J.J. Abrams took the country by storm with his 2008 science fiction first person camera hit Cloverfield.  This movie was like nothing I’ve seen before.  It consisted of a Godzilla like creature but shot in the first person point of view of a minor character who runs around the whole time with a hand held camcorder recording the catastrophe.  I loved this movie and still remember sitting in the theaters with my friend in awe about how creative and fun this movie was.  The reason why I am millions of others saw this movie was because we had not idea what the hell this movie was going to be about, and it drove us nuts to the point we had to see it.

The reason we had no idea was because of its viral marketing of the movie.  The trailer and commercials looked like they were some sort of mock news feed, I didn’t even think it was a movie.  Some people thought the commercials were live TV.  There was nothing in the trailers that gave anything away.  We got a party, some kids drinking, and we know that there is some sort of explosion and that’s it.  This spread like wild fired throughout Youtube and the internet eventually revealing a little bit more with the posters and enticing viewers.

J.J. Abrams is up to it again with his latest trailer.  After the summer blockbuster of 2009 with Star Trek, he recently released the trailer to a secret project called Super 8 which is taking notes from Cloverfield in its viral marketing and trailer to deceive viewers giving them little.  The trailer gives us a little back story so we know its supposed to take place in New Mexico and we know that there is something that goes wrong with a transfer of materials going to Area 51, but we know nothing else.  And knowing J.J. and all his various projects, we won’t until the movie is released.  I have no idea if this is going to be shot in the style of Cloverfield or not, but I do not that little of the story will be released.  And I love how that is going to happen, because it will drive the anticipation to high levels and drive internet geeks like myself from posting all over the various social networks asking questions and looking for answers.  This is exactly what the team behind Super 8 wants and it looks like Abrams knows the secret to promoting smaller release movies.

Should more smaller released movies be more secretive about their stories?  Check out the trailer to Super 8 and let me know what you think.