Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep everyone inside the hatch during your trailer for a movie about a bunch of people stuck together in such a claustrophobic location? I’d think so. It creates drama for the film you’re marketing when audiences don’t get a sense of how things are going to turn out. However, Paramount doesn’t seem to want to go in that direction, teasing the monster connection that 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE may have with the previous CLOVERFIELD movie has in order to put asses in the seats for opening weekend.
Granted, that only seems to be a very small aspect of the film, with so much more to be examined about the nature of monsters existing within humanity… and maybe that’s how people discover a prospective really good film that they might not have checked out otherwise. However, audiences seem to grow angry quickly when the old bait-and-switch is pulled on them. They want movies that come as advertised, not ones that are completely different than what they were expecting. Paramount is walking a very fine line here as they move toward 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE’s release.
I’m in to give this one a look, not anticipating much of a traditional monster movie except for what we get near the end of the film. But will others be as satisfied when they find 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE is something much more intimate?
We’ll find out on March 11.