Yesterday, we of the Cloverfield Monster Toy, which is being produced by Hasbro. We received a few angry comments, yelling at us for “Spoiling” Cloverfield for them.
The whole concept of Spoilers has been something that has been on my mind for a few months now. Originally a Spoiler meant something from a film that gave away a twist or turning point in the story. Basically, anything that would ruin your experience watching the story on the big screen. I don’t know exactly when, but sometime in the last year the tide began to change online, and studio released production photos began to be considered “spoilers” even when they didn’t reveal something major about the story. A reader once complained to me that posting a photo of Indiana Jones standing in front of a jungle background was a spoiler which should be kept after the jump. I try not to “Spoil” stuff, but it has gotten ridiculous.
The Cloverfield Monster is NOT a Spoiler!
It’s a real testament to the marketing department at Paramount, that they somehow tricked the world into believing that the Cloverfield Monster is somehow a spoiler. It all started when director Matt Reeves threw in the now infamous last minute line “I saw it! It’s Alive! It’s Huge” while he was directing the film’s teaser trailer (the trailer was filmed before the movie). And sometime after the trailer hit attached to Transformers, the studio and Bad Robot decided to focus the marketing around the mystery and the fan’s craving to know - “What is it?”
But truth is - The Cloverfield Monster is not a spoiler. Seeing the monster does not ruin the movie for you. It doesn’t ruin the story what-so-ever. In fact, the marketing campaigns for most monster movies heavily involve the appearance of the monster(s). The only way the Cloverfield Monster would/could be a spoiler is if it was the result of a plot twist. Say for example, Rob’s father ate some brownies with some nuclear gamma acid and turned into the monster. So by seeing the creature, you would be able to see that the monster use to be Rob’s father. That would be a spoiler. Seeing Godzilla before a Godzilla movie is not a spoiler.
Besides, Paramount gave Hasbro the go-ahead to release the photos of the toy version of the monster. The photos were released on the official website, in plain view, without a spoiler warning. The film hit theaters almost a whole month ago. Paramount even began running television advertisements featuring a very good look at the Cloverfield Monster, just days after the film’s opening weekend. But then again, some people would claim that trailers and television spots are also “spoilers”.
I believe the studios are to blame for this recent change in reader reaction. Hollywood is so scared that spoilers will ruin their big Summer tentpole film, that they hide those productions in secrecy. But in result, they create this culture of fear among film fanatics. All of a sudden, a set photo of Zachary Quinto in costume as Spock somehow becomes a major spoiler. Even though all the marketing leading up to the film’s release will likely show Quinto in character. The audience somehow assigns these crazy associations to the word Spoiler, even though it is usually never the case.
I think we all need to calm down. A spoiler is me telling you what happens in the last ten minutes of a movie. A spoiler is not the picture of a toy version of the Cloverfield monster, released a month after the film’s release.
My position on this has remained the same throughout the years: A spoiler is something that will spoil your enjoyment of the story to a major degree (a plot twist, a character turn…etc). Anything officially released by the studio (production photos, a trailer, tv spots) is all fair game. We will continue hide spoilers after the jump, so that readers won’t accidentally run into them while scrolling through the page.
What do you guys think?
What constitutes a spoiler?
How long after the release of a movie does a spoiler become fair game as the topic of mainstream conversation? (ie How long after The Sixth Sense should you wait before publicly discussing the twist ending? Movies ad television shows spoof the ending all the time).
just booked her third film in a month’s time, following Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell and Drew Barrymore’s Whip It. She’ll star opposite the ever-androgynous Cillian Murphy (Breakfast on Pluto, Scarecrow) in Peacock, a high concept thriller in which Murphy will play a split-personality “who tricks a town into believing his alter egos are man and wife.” And, of course, Page will play a struggling young mother…who instigates a battle between Murphy’s bickering inner-couple.
Directed by David Fincher (Zodiac)
As to Button ..my thought on this one is that Fincher is overdue — way overdue, in fact — for some Oscar attention and some statuettes. Zodiac was one of the more egregiously overlooked films from last year, and he’s a consistently superb craftsman. (We’ll just let Alien³ drift out of our memories.) Pitt and Blanchett will bring the notoriety and the big audiences that Oscar increasingly needs for its nominees. I hope this is a slam dunk.
While we’re travelling backwards through time, I’m hoping Fincher can also pull off the neat trick of making me feel like I don’t have Cate Blanchett’s every line and curve and facial expression committed to memory because if she is going to be in every Oscar Bait movie for yet another five years, I’m going to need to feel that Elizabeth ‘98 revelation again.
Nathaniel: My word there was a lot of finger crossing in that discussion! Sounds like a whole bundle of raw nerves are mixed into the group excitement for Button. I trust Fincher but I am a little weirded out that so many different actors are playing Benjamin Button. I understand that Pitt can’t play every age but one actor is listed as “Benjamin Button -age 36″ and considering Pitt himself (who is 44) just played a 34 year-old in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford I wonder how much screen time he’s actually going to have here.
The Juno phenom has got all due analysis from every possible angle. Cinematical’s Ryan Stewart tried to calm us Juno-haters by insisting that Juno was certainly a little movie; perhaps that will be some consolation when Juno wins that Best Original Screenplay Oscar a week from Sunday (the safest Oscar prediction you could make). Despite the charm of Ms. Page, and the arguable indie cred, there’s still holdouts. I still think Juno was a sustained onslaught of alterna-cuteness so pitiless that it makes the very follicles of the hair ache. 
Just in case you can’t get enough of the WWE already, they’re really getting into the movie biz. Variety reports that they’re teaming up with Fox Atomic for a new action movie called 12 Rounds. The flick will be helmed by Renny Harlin — the man behind Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea, and my personal favorite — A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. (Yes, I like that movie. A lot.) Now, being a WWE feature, there’s got to be some wrasslin’ in the mix, so the cast will be led by John Cena, and also include Steve Harris (The Practice), Aidan Gillen (The Wire), and Brian White (Stomp the Yard).
Directed by Chris Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins )
In this new entry Christian Bale faces off against two villains: Harvey Dent/Two Face played by Aaron Eckhart, so far mostly missing from the brilliant ad campaign but we hear he is actually the chief foe; Heath Ledger plays The Joker and commands all the powers of the ad campaign (thus far)
Joe: So we’re all ignoring the elephant in the room, then? Okay.
Go ahead and draw your weapons now: I wasn’t as big a fan of Ledger’s as some around these parts (Nathaniel and Joe both wrote beautiful elegies last month, extended over the course of multiple posts). And I wasn’t emotionally devastated by his death (not the way I was for, say, Ossie Davis). And I didn’t bond with Ledger in Brokeback Mountain (I think Gyllenhaal did the heavy lifting in that movie, personally. Insert midnight-in-the-tent joke here.) So when it comes to The Dark Knight, I’m not more or less excited now than I was a few months ago…I still think Ledger was a fine actor, and am intrigued to see what he’ll do with this difficult, challenging character.
Glenn: I think the more interesting piece of the marketing puzzle will arise when the cast take to the talkshow circuit. They’ll certainly have Bale and Eckhart out there, and maybe Maggie Gyllenhaal (to erase the stink of Katie Holmes) and you just know what the very first question is going to be about. It’s unignorable. I just hope they treat it with dignity. Unlike the Entertainment Tonights of this world which moved straight from dragging Ledger’s name through the mud to discussing the exclusing images of Jessica Alba getting a juice!
