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'Cloverfield' Sequel Offers Fans Hope Of A Steadicam-Sized Budget

Perhaps scared off by the litany of physical side effects rattled off at triple-speed towards the end of its TV spots, audiences abandoned Cloverfield in droves in its second weekend at the box office. Still, before moving on to their next Ken Davitian-in-nipple-jewelry obsession, fickle entertainment consumers managed to cement its status as the biggest January opening, like, ever. Which means, of course, that a sequel is already in development:

CBS Tries To Circumvent Strike By Exploiting Cheap Canadian TV-Developing Labor

· Looking for inventive ways to develop scripted programming during the writers strike, CBS Paramount TV reaches across our northern border to partner with CTV to produce the police drama Flashpoint. which will be scripted and shot in Canada. "[The production values] will be as good as any American production," somewhat defensively notes a source, trying to alleviate fears that CBS is trying to save money by eventually airing some second-rate Mountie melodrama badly overdubbed to eliminate suspicious Canadian accents. [Variety]
· As expected, the WGA has reached an interim deal with the Grammys, saving the highly expendable awards show from suffering the same undignified fate as the Golden Globes. Reacts Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, revealing that he may never have watched a Grammys telecast: "Having our talented writers on the team further ensures the highest level of creativity and innovation, something our audience has come to expect every year." [THR]

Ask Your Doctor: Should I Be Worried About 'Cloverfield' Barf Syndrome?

With the secret of Cloverfield now out, legions of American thrill-seeking moviegoers are emerging from theaters with one finger pressed to their puckered mouths, trying to make it to the cineplex restroom before succumbing to the effects of CBS, or Cloverfield Barf Syndrome. Theaters have taken to posting warnings about the film's side-effects (see photo), and some have even gone so far as to set up [spoiler alert] plastic-tarp containment zones, where suspected victims are quickly herded by ushers in HAZMAT suits before they can detonate into a splat of green liquid. With panic over the quickly spreading condition increasing, CNN.com approached some physicians for advice:

'Cloverfield' Devours January

You know, Hollywood has a dream, too: Seeing summer box office numbers in the dead of January. This weekend, that dream has finally come to pass, bringing movie executives of all stripes and luxury-car-driving-categories out of their offices and into the streets, to stand together and toss bushels of warm money into the air in a stirring showing of producerly love. The numbers:

1. Cloverfield - $41 million
Slight spoilers ahead: Can you say Best. January. Opening. Ever? Paramount can, and will—a lot, as the Siberian gulag of a movie-release month miraculously thawed in time (Al Gore warned us!) to bring the studio the kinds of numbers one might expect from a July release that ends in 3. A lot was at stake for Cloverfield, as some wondered whether relying so heavily on internet-disseminated buzz could have easily spelled a Snakes on a Curse for the YouTube-Eats-Manhattan movie. At the end of the day, however, it was its utter lack of irony—the dire, matter-of-fact style in which it documented the horrors of CW stars being eaten by Rottweiller-sized crab lice—that was the secret to Cloverfield's success.

'Cloverfield': The Critics Are Split

We've already run the advance reviews (what—you don't trust Nicholas Chance, Kid Detective Reviewer?), and given you an exclusive! semi-blurry insider's gallery of Wednesday night's premiere. But with today's opening, everyone can finally check out Cloverfield for themselves—or not, if Godzilla vs. Felicity isn't your thing. (It was totally our thing.) The reviews are in:
· "The doomed Gotham created by producer J.J. Abrams — he with the golden Felicity, Alias, and Lost touch — and his team is almost entirely populated by vapid, twenty-something nincompoops. Oops, I mean attractive, indistinguishable young people who handle cell phones, DV cameras, etc., with ease; call one another ''dude''; don't have anything interesting to say; and, perhaps as a result, don't listen to one another, even in an emergency." [EW.com]

You Don't Look Like A Dude To Me

Last night was the premiere of Cloverfield on Paramount's lot, an event they were kind enough to invite us to. Without getting too deeply into the what and the how of it, we'll only say that the movie was the rare release to receive a unanimous thumbs up from Defamer HQ: short, slick, and ferociously sweet.

If Harry Knowles's ecstatic, Greatest Single Experience of All Time Including My First Breath, First Kiss, and the First Time I Tasted Cherry Garcia review of Cloverfield wasn't enough to get you excited about Paramount's latest release, perhaps we can tempt you with this headless Statue of Liberty replica currently erected on their lot.

Tracking The Early 'Cloverfield' Buzz: Giant Fucking Monsters Are Definitely Coming

At long last, Cloverfield, Slusho Beverage Corp.'s bold foray into the sci-fi disaster genre, had its first screenings last night. Hours later, members of the fanboy journalist elite lucky enough to have had first, unfettered access to the mysterious creature at the center of all the monument-decapitating mayhem, took to the internets. Below, a round-up of the buzz. [Ed. note: We'll try to avoid spoilers, but promise nothing. You've been warned.]
· If we are to believe the Kingdom of the Fanboys' semi-merciful Lord and Ruler Harry Knowles, it was a watershed moment in giant-fucking- monster-stomping- through-Manhattan cinematic history: "The movie is fucking brilliant. It's what we were told it was going to be. An intimate perspective on an impossibly grand scale human disaster beyond most human levels of comprehension." Slashfilm reminds us, however, that this was a guy who thought the Godzilla remake was peaches. [AICN, Slashfilm]

Director Matt Reeves Reveals How 'Cloverfield' Was Born In The Streets Of L.A.

As much of the geeky-gened moviegoing world tries to decode the mysteries of Cloverfield, obsessively connecting the push-pin dots on bulletin boards covered in maps and radioactive monster imagery, our friends at LAist had the novel idea to approach director Matt Reeves directly. It turns out he was extremely forthcoming, offering oodles of fanboynip, including background on the project's history, its buzzy, pre-Transformers trailer, and even the origins of its ambiguous title that sounds like a margarine brand:

LAist: Tell us the real story behind the title Cloverfield?

Bootlegged Trailers, Maligned Softballers, and Virtual Surgery

· We know that you've already been tantalized by a Cloverfield trailer of barely watchable quality, so here's a better one that should induce about 50 percent fewer seizures. Your neurologist can thank us later. [via Vulture]
· Donnie Osmond apologizes to Larry King for doubting the host's motives in actually asking his sister a tough question she may not have been ready for.
· Where in the world is Paris Hilton? (Hint: it's still not Rwanda.)
· Radar does some work on Owen Wilson's face, taking all of the character out of his most instantly recognizable feature. (And they didn't spare the scalpel for Darjeeling co-star Adrien Brody, either.)

Leaked 'Cloverfield' Trailer Provides Glimpse Of Top-Secret, Completely Terrifying Blur-Monster

A new trailer for Cloverfield (now officially its inscrutable title!), the JJ Abrams-produced monster movie whose secrets are being guarded as ruthlessly guarded as those of the upcoming Indiana Jones sequel that has already destroyed two lives, has "mysteriously" been "leaked" onto the internets in advance of its debut before screenings of Beowulf this weekend.

Is It Too Early To Get That 'Cloverfield' Backlash Going?

Even if J.J. Abrams' "mysterious" Cloverfield project [Ed.note—Oooh, spooky!] turns out to be the greatest Top Secret Movie Featuring the Beheading of a Curiously Tiny Statue of Liberty ever made, we'll still feel justified in feeling instantaneously suffocated by hype the moment the much-buzzed-about "1-18-08" clip, premiered in front of Transformers and leaked with alacrity to the internets, faded to black.