What started as a very low budget independent flick shot in 8 days, turned into the sub-genre that we now call ‘found footage’. While The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first movie to use this style, it was the one that turned the most heads and gave studios the courage to try something new. 12 years later we have the popular Paranormal Activity series and many other flicks coming and going so there’s no better time to have a look at the found footage box office top 10.

10. [Rec] 2 (2009) $18.5 million

Sequel to the original 2007 [Rec], this Spanish horror film did not live up to the high standards set by the original. Other than that, it made quite some money.

9. Apollo 18 (2011) $25.4 million

A movie released just little over 2 months ago, Apollo 18 tells the story of two American astronauts sent on a secret expedition to the Moon. The premise showed a lot of potential but like many of this films, it ultimately disappointed.

8. [Rec] (2007) $32.5 million

Let me just say that if this was a top 10 based on quality, [Rec] would no doubt rank first. While only 4 years old, this is already a cult classic and for fear of spoiling anything, I won’t tell you anything about the story. It also inspired a less than stellar US remake that found its way to 7th place.

7. Quarantine (2008) $41.3 million

Don’t be fooled by the fact that this made more money, quality wise it can’t hold a candle to [Rec]. Now if you haven’t seen the original, on its own, Quarantine isn’t half bad but I personally recommend you see [Rec], it’s much more deserving of your time.

6. The Last Exorcism (2010) $67.7 million

A forgettable PG-13 supernatural horror only good for some cheap scares.

5. Cloverfield (2008) $170.7 million

The J.J. Abrams monster feature first teased in front of Transformers in the summer of 2007 is, by found footage standards, a ten pound gorilla considering the $25 million budget. It was a very polarizing movie, liked by some, hated by others but in the end a very unique experience. I think Cloverfield is definitely worth your time.

4. Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) $172.4 million*

I put an asterisk there because this movie is still well into its box office run and by the time it leaves theaters, it should at least be in 2nd place. I haven’t seen this one so I won’t judge what I don’t know. But reviews and word of mouth seem to be good so you might want to check this one out too.

3. Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) $177.5 million

After the death of the Saw series, Paranormal Activity became the go-to Halloween franchise, one that seems like it’s not as close to the finish line as I thought it was a month ago. While not as appreciated or popular, Paranormal Activity 2 made more then enough money to warrant not just one sequel but probably ten.

2. Paranormal Activity (2009) $193.5 million

This is probably as close as we’ve ever got to a second Blair Witch Project. By now we know this series has become a worldwide phenomenon and is here for the long run, so there’s no point in arguing over anything else.

1. The Blair Witch Project (1999) $248.6 million

The movie that made found footage films popular and is still, 12 years later, the most popular of this sub-genre. So you might ask, if it was so popular, why not pull a Paranormal Activity on it? Well, they actually tried something with Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, an awful mess of a movie released in 2000. The thing is, because found footage was still a strange concept for a mainstream feature, they probably got scared and changed the style with the sequel, dropping the found footage look. A 3rd entry was planned for 2001 but since Book of Shadows performed so badly both with fans and at the box office, it was cancelled.

A look at what is to come is not easy with these movies since they have a tendency to come out of nowhere. What we do know is a 4th Paranormal Activity will be released by Halloween 2012 and then we have Chronicle, a found footage superhero flick scheduled to open February 3rd 2012. I’m personally very much looking forward to that. Until then don’t forget to film anything weird that happens to you, who knows, maybe one day it might turn into a movie.

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Further establishing himself as the next generation’s Steven Spielberg, triple threat talent J.J. Abrams (writer/producer/director) has teamed up with the legend himself for the first original project of Abrams’ feature directing career. Much like Chris Nolan’s Inception last year, Super 8 is an idea that has been in Abrams’ mind for many years and is a complete passion project. Spielberg produced Super 8, and you can feel his influences permeate every frame: visual style, character moments, relationships, and most importantly, what some people are referring to as the “nostalgia” factor (more on this later). Abrams successfully cribs Spielberg’s old Amblin vibe, adding his own energy to an alien-on-the-loose story that is easily one of the best blockbusters of the year so far.

In 1979, a group of teenagers is making an 8mm film for an upcoming competition. A train crashes while they’re filming, and the mysterious creature being transported is set loose in their small Ohio town. As the military quickly swoops in to clean up the wreckage, everyone – including one of the teenagers’ fathers, the town sheriff – is searching for answers. Though the movie’s scale grows as time passes, Super 8 still feels like a very personal film. It’s the story of a young boy coming to terms with the passing of his mother and reconnecting to his father in the process. (It’s similar to Hesher in that regard alone.) This is small town Americana filmmaking at its best, not shot on a studio backlot or a lot built for filming in New Mexico (ahem, Thor), but instead in a real West Virginia town to establish a sense that these locations actually exist.

As someone who generally is not a fan of kids in movies, the casting was surprisingly great. Everyone in Super 8 put in some really solid work, especially the main group of kids. That’s the thing about movies like this and Joe Cornish’s brilliant Attack the Block: it’s fun to see alien-related events through the eyes of a younger crowd instead of the deadly serious eyes of adults all the time (see: Battle: Los Angeles). Joel Courtney was substantial as the lead and Elle Fanning provided a rare case in which nepotism wasn’t annoying, but Riley Griffiths was my favorite as Charles, the director of “The Case,” the short film the characters are working on (stick around during the credits to see the finished product). His catchphrase (“that’s mint!”) was irritating to some, but I’ll admit I found it amusing.

The adults were a bit less impressive, with Kyle Chandler wandering around looking confused and the best friend from The Truman Show unconvincingly playing a hardass military general. All things considered, though, the good outweighs the bad here. All of this is highlighted by the disgustingly talented Michael Giacchino, giving us a score that takes its cues from John Williams as much as J.J. took his from Spielberg. Abrams’ script is essentially a “Romeo and Juliet with aliens” take, and gets a bit sentimental at points (especially the ending, reminiscent of Close Encounters but also District 9), but the movie is still totally watchable and highly enjoyable. And my God – that train crash sequence is spectacular beyond belief.

My cohort at GeekTyrant, Free Reyes, referred to Abrams as “Spielberg 2.0″, an apt nickname that specifically captures the director’s intent with this project. He is truly able to recreate the experience of many of Spielberg’s old Amblin movies (Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. immediately spring to mind), grounding spectacular events in a realism that makes it easy to identify with the characters. The nostalgia factor that everyone talks about comes from seeing kids left to their own devices, making movies and goofing around. I used to make movies with my friends (granted, I was much older than these kids were), but Super 8 still evokes that feeling of being in the moment and being passionate about a project you’re working on. Everyone has experienced that at some point. I’ve seen people hate on this movie by saying something like, “just because the kids ride bikes, does that make it nostalgic?” I would say yes, actually. My generation in particular (born in ’85) is probably among the last age bracket to physically remember what it feels like to not have the internet at our fingertips at all times. We grew up in a time when we would actually go out and ride our bikes around the neighborhood, playing outside with our friends. (Derrick Comedy’s Mystery Team also riffs on this “bike riding as nostalgia” concept.)

But Abrams doesn’t just operate within his mentor’s shadow in this movie – he steps out of it to explore ideas of his own. There is a lot to be said about the concept of a “movie within a movie” here, with Abrams granting a similar sense of importance to the act of filming as he did as a producer on Matt Reeves’ fantastic Cloverfield back in 2008. Not only is filming itself deemed important, but the power of performance is given an almost holy quality in Super 8. There’s a scene before the train crash in which Alice (Elle Fanning) is rehearsing her lines for their little movie, and completely mesmerizes the guys with her acting. Later, Joe (Joel Courtney) applies zombie make-up to Alice’s face and she asks him for pointers on how to play a zombie; when she goes into zombie mode, Joe is spellbound again. These are small moments, but I read them as a statement from the director praising film’s potential to change the lives of audiences.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

I’m also of the mindset that Super 8 is a prequel to Cloverfield. Apparently Abrams has denied this in interviews back when the movie was first announced, but regardless of his misdirection, I think there is enough evidence to support the theory that the alien in Super 8 is somehow related to the alien we see in Cloverfield. I go in detail about this in the GeekTyrant audio review of Super 8, so check in there for more information. As a producer on Cloverfield and someone with a penchant for including his signature in every movie (Slusho, seen here on a blink-and-you-miss-it sign at the gas station), I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine Abrams wanting a connection between those films. Also, when you consider the aforementioned similarities of the importance of filming both to Super 8 and Cloverfield, I think the case gets a bit stronger. Regardless of J.J.’s intention, I consider this a spiritual prequel to Reeves’ film. But what do you think? Sound off in the comments – I’m legitimately interested in hearing from everyone on this.

Super 8 is my preferred summer blockbuster: a project with talented names attached and an original concept. If it does well, you can bet Hollywood will make sure we continue to see films like these mixed in with our board game and superhero movies in the summers to come. Until next time…

Read similar posts to Review: Super 8 at Filmonic

More vampires for the man at the helm of Cloverfield and Let Me In, as he has just signed on to direct a film adaptation of Justin Cronin’s novel The Passage. More after the break.

Scott Free is producing the film; Ridley Scott was originally going to be at the head of this project, but, obviously, isn’t anymore.

Deadline, who broke the news, provided a description of the source material:

In The Passage, a group of terminally ill cancer patients get healthy after being subjected to the bites of bats in South America. Naturally, the government see this as a cure for the disease and starts experimenting. They end up with a legion of nearly indestructible, telepathic vampire masters that begin infecting the populace. The tone is closer to 28 Days Later and The Stand than Let The Right One In or Twilight Saga.

Matt Reeves is going to oversee a new rewrite of the screenplay, which was originally written by John Logan while Scott was attached to the project (Logan is working on the new Bond movie at the moment).

Earlier this week, Reeves also signed a deal to write and direct an adaptation of Ray Nelson’s short story 8 O’Clock in the Morning, which was previously turned into a film by John Carpenter in 1988, in the form of They Live.

I haven’t seen Let Me In. Whether it’s a good film or not, it still annoys me that it was decided to make a new American adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s book, instead of give 2008′s brilliant Let the Right One In a bigger promotion push all over town, or somethin’. Nonetheless, I am a huge fan of Cloverfield, The Passage sounds great (enough so that I might seek it out), and I am looking forward to seeing what Reeves does with it.

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Last years winner was The Golden Compass

As well as announcing Hugh Jackman as the new host for next February’s Oscars, the Academy have revealed the 15 movies in the running for the 2008 visual effects Oscar.

Here is the list in alphabetical order:
Australia
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Cloverfield
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Hancock
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
The Incredible Hulk
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
Journey to the Center of the Earth
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Quantum of Solace
The Spiderwick Chronicles

This award is probably the one people care about the most, seeing as though this category contains movies people actually see.

In early January the list will be narrowed down to 7, then on January 15th members of the visual effects branch will watch excerpts from the movies, and the list will be narrowed down to 3.

Which movie do you think deserves the Oscar?

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Cloverfield is coming to DVD very soon and will no doubt sell like hotcakes, giving Paramount more profit to the $140 million they currently have. When a film is made for a mere $25 million and goes on to make that kind of money, a sequel will most likely be on the cards. However, would any of the original cast return? ShockTillYouDrop spoke with Michael Stahl-David (the lead monster fleer) about whether he has heard anything about the inevitable Cloverfield 2. (I am sure everyone who saw it knows what happen to his character at the end of the movie)

“I think they’re still trying to figure out how they’re going to pull it off,” the actor laughs. “They have some ideas they’re excited about but they’re really not sharing them with many people…and they’re not sharing them with me.”

He adds he would be surprised if Reeves and company asked him to return, “unless it was being glimpsed for a second by somebody else’s camera. And I think people have seen enough of me running around anyway.”

Personally, I think they should carry on with a sequel but with a totally different cast. Then we can see the night from peoples eyes, or a whole different night entirely.

Read similar posts to Michael Stahl-David on Cloverfield 2 at Filmonic

After months of anticipation, Cloverfield was finally released a couple of weeks back, and we only saw the monster briefly. It looked big and scary but we never got a really good look. It was either being hammered with missiles or directly above us. Well Hasbro have kindly made a toy of the thing for us all to cuddly up in bed with. It costs $99 and comes with 10 parasites, two interchangeable heads and a Statue of Liberty head. Its also white…which I don’t think it was in the film.

Check more angles of it here.

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Its official. After nearly 4 months of strike action, the WGA have struck a deal. The WGA West board of directors and the WGA East Council will meet Sunday to formally endorse the contract. And writers could be back at work as early as Monday, depending on whether the WGA’s ruling bodies decide whether to end the three-month strike at those Sunday meetings. You can read all of the details, including a letter from WGAE President Michael Winship and WGAW President Patric M. Verrone to the WGA members announcing the tentative deal, over at Variety and ComingSoon. Here is a excerpt:

To Our Fellow Members,
We have a tentative deal.

It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, “When they get paid, we get paid.”

Specific terms of the agreement are described in the summary on our website and will be further discussed at our Saturday membership meetings on both coasts. At those meetings we will also discuss how we will proceed regarding ratification of this agreement and lifting the restraining order that ends the strike.

So what movies can now be made now the strike is over?

Transformers 2, The Hobbit, Thor, Tintin, Magneto, Conan, Jurassic Park 4, Justice League and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time to name a few. There is also a possibility that Fantastic Four 3, Cloverfield 2 and Pirates 4 could begin work. Spiderman 4′s script has been put on hold so screenwriter James Vanderbilt can continue and it is likely that Terminator Salvation will go through a re-write. There are probably quite a few other movies that can now begin to roll forward thanks to the strike ending.

Lets hope the writers are back to work on Monday!

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Today is the day that Cloverfield is finally released (in some parts of the world anyway) and everyone will finally see the monster in all of its glory. Some early reviews suggests that the wait has been worthwhile, with some reviews calling it a ‘Classic’ and ‘Utterly Brilliant’. So if you are in the US, New Zealand, Canada and Australia, enjoy the film, for some people on this planet have to wait until February. The films premiere brought out the people behind the hand held camera. Bloody Disgusting was there and quizzed script writer Drew Goodard about writing the film.

“The original draft was much more brutal. I wanted a hard R and we didn’t get a hard R, they read it and said this is way to brutal. I will say that I think we pushed the limits on a PG-13 rating we certainly shot a harder version than what is on the screen, we originally wanted it to be more bloody and disgusting.” He didn’t answer when asked if we will get to see that harder version when its released onto DVD. On the monster Goddard said, “It’s even better than I imagined as I was writing it!”

I suppose having Cloverfield rated higher would mean quite a lot of people would be excluded from seeing it. If you are going to release a film surrounded in secrecy you want as many people to see it as possible, including teenagers. It also brings in money, lets not forget about that.

Director Matt Reeves spoke about a possible sequel. If Cloverfield makes tons on money then a sequel will obviously become a priority over at Paramount.

“Only time will tell. 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 iphones and handy cams, uploading it to youtube…That was kind of exciting thinking about that.”

So prepare yourself for the same monster but from different points of view. Sounds interesting. I can’t really comment about my thoughts on a sequel as I haven’t seen the original. I suggest that everyone go and see it and then return with your thoughts.

Read similar posts to Cloverfield Script Was More Violent and Sequel Talk! at Filmonic

We will all probably see Cloverfield at some point this month so we can see that damn monster. How they have kept it a secret all this time is beyond me, usually everything is leaked. I am sure after a few lucky people have seen it earlier than everyone else, we will get descriptions of the monster. Until anything is revealed, we have this final poster, thanks to Cinema Blend. To be honest we have seen the headless Statue of Liberty for the past few months and I am getting sick of it! I want to see the monster dammit!

Below is the poster, and here is a link for you to view 20+ new images. Enjoy!

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I’ve just been on a Cloverfield kick the past few days, haven’t I?

For those of you who are really into production stuff, Coming Soon got a hold of the Production notes for the film. The document is 38 pages long, and it DOES contain spoilers.

However, it is a fairly interesting read, and worth checking out. There are also things in there that pseudo confirm a story we ran about a week ago…
Read them by clicking here.

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