With just one other feature film directing credit, Matt Reeves isn't exactly a household name. And given the subject of that particular film (The Pallbearer, a romantic comedy starring David Schwimmer), and his credit as executive producer and co-creator of Felicity, one wouldn't expect Reeves to be the go-to guy to helm a giant monster movie. But Reeves tells us that's exactly why his friend and longtime associate J.J. Abrams recruited him to direct Cloverfield. As the mysteries surrounding the film finally begin to unravel, Reeves explains what we can expect when we plunk down our hard-earned cash for what could be the first truly good giant monster movie in an awfully long time...

Could you talk about how you first got involved with J.J. Abrams and this project?

Well, you know, J.J. and I have known each other for a very long time. We literally met and made filmed when we were in our teens. We?d just been friends forever, and creative confidants?exchanging scripts and movies, all kinds of stuff. We just shared a love of movies. He was involved in the first movie that I made, that I directed. Then after that we decided we would do a project together, and both of us created Felicity together. We spent four years working on that together. He?s just one of my close friends. One of the other people involved, one of our producers, is a friend of mine whom I?ve also known since that age. I actually introduced him to J.J. His name is Brian Burke. We?ve been friends forever, and Brian also made films as a kid. It?s sort of this thing where we all just shared this passion and love for movies. That was the seed of our friendship. Obviously we?ve stayed close friends all these years.
There?s a movie that I wrote that I?m gonna be directing, and J.J.?s involved?he?s one of the producers. We were talking one day, and he was telling me about this new deal he just started with Paramount, to start making movies, that he was gonna be producing. And there was one that he was really excited about making?this giant monster movie. He was describing it to me, and I go, ?Oh, that sounds fun,? never having any idea that he and Brian would then come to me when we were in the middle of just getting things off the ground with my film, when we just got the green light on this film. ?At this point there?s only an outline, but there?s this great writer, and you?re gonna love him. His name?s Drew Goddard. And we?d just really love you to be involved in this film.?
I thought the idea was sort of really exciting and different. I said, ?Let me read the outline.? I read the outline and my reaction was that there were all these digital effects clearly, and it was this grand movie, and it looked really exciting and fun?almost this Roland Emmerich scale movie. I was like, ?Gosh, this is a really exciting idea, and really fun, but pretty a lot of the stuff I?ve been doing??there was a show that I did the pilot for, called Miracles, on ABC??has been very, very character based.? Because that?s what I?ve been interested in; there?s a kind of naturalism, a realism in the character relationships. They said, ?That?s exactly the reason why we want you to do this. Because we feel like somebody could come in here and they?d be the obvious monster guy, but we want you to bring that kind of naturalism and realism to this story.? Then I got really excited, because I thought, ?Well, wait a minute, if we?re gonna take this outrageous story, but we?re gonna do it in a kind of realistic manner, then that excites me.? Because the idea of using the metaphor that this sort of monster movie is, the way that Godzilla was a metaphor for its time, in the way it had to do with people?s anxiety about the atomic bomb and all of that sort of terror. And how that enabled people to approach those feelings and also have the vicarious thrill of just watching this monster movie that?s very applicable to our times in a style that?s never been done?I just thought, ?Well, okay, this is a challenge, this is exciting, and I would love to do it.? We would be doing things in ways that were difficult to do. We were gonna be shooting some grand-scale action scenes?in ways they?d be normally shot you might get like twenty different angles, you might get a big wide shot, a beautiful master and a reverse shot and a close-up shot and all the details. And then you build this thing in editing. I thought, ?Well, here, if we?re gonna do it this way?? I felt if we were gonna do this handicam movie, it had to feel real. It had to feel that if you were in the middle of this chaos, and something was going on, you might not cut for a very long time. So instead of shooting a scene in all these different angles and breaking it down into pieces and then putting it together in the editing, the idea of designing long sequences that would involve many, many effects, but then doing it in one shot and doing it in that way. And doing scenes between characters in one shot, instead of covering a scene and then spending hours shooting several different angles and then shooting different takes, the idea of coming in and saying, ?Well, instead, I?m gonna shoot one angle, and we?re gonna shoot it maybe fifty or sixty times, trying improvisation and trying all these things?? When all of these things are sort of popping into my head about how we could do it, I just thought, ?Well, I have to do this movie. This is gonna be very exciting and very different and a challenge for all of us.? So that?s really how I got involved.

There?s been a lot of speculation as to what the film is really about. I realize you can?t get into details, but for someone who has know idea what to expect, how would you describe Cloverfield?

I would describe the movie very much as a kind of thrill ride experience that?s also very character based. It starts in a kind of naturalistic real way, and it?s as if the movie has a kind of found footage aesthetic to it, meaning it?s as if you?re watching somebody?s tape and you?re playing it. So you?re watching it, and you?re meeting the characters in this kind of less traditional way. Normally you?d be introduced in a kind of very traditional Hollywood expository way, characters sometimes sort of meet cute, and you?d have some sort of story and all the exposition would come out. But here we made a specific effort to kind of submerge. We worked out all of that story, but we made an effort to kind of submerge it so that it could happen in a kind of naturalistic way. So the only cuts you see in the movie are when whoever?s operating the camera at that time turns the camera on and off. So the next time the camera goes on is the next moment you see. So you might have to put the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out who these people are. The idea would be that you can kind of sort of watch this home movie, for lack of a better way of describing it, and then in the middle of watching this, what if as you were watching this going away party, what if something crazy happened. And it became a kind of imperative to keep filming because it needed to be documented. And the idea of trying to survive that evening and the idea of a group of friends who all know each other trying to cling to each other and survive and get through it and to go through that experience with them. And so the movie is very experiential, because, again, you guys have the widget clip, and one of the reasons that I was excited to show that clip was that everybody has seen the movie in these kind of disjointed, sort of glimpsing ways, because of the trailer. But one of the things about the movie is it?s not told in that way.
There might be quick jump cuts, there might be accidental moments where the camera?s on, but there are also very, very long continuous takes. And I think one of the fun things about seeing the clip is you get the sense for the kind of vibe of things. You start to see how these shots aren?t just quick little highlight shots?some of the movie takes place in real time. Then suddenly you might make a jump forward, and you have to fill in what happened between here and there, and the way that that engages you as a viewer is really exciting. I really hope that people get excited about that experience. We have, in making it and in watching it, and we really think that people will.

What?s your greatest fear?

I think being buried alive is a pretty terrifying fear. I?m trying to think of anything else that would pop out? I don?t know. One of the exciting things about this movie is this vibe of building dread. Some times it?s the thing that you don?t see that is the most frightening, because of the anticipation of what?s there.