Cloverfield seems to have done quite well at the box office over the weekend, doing $46 million in the US, which is comparable to Peter Jackson's King Kong opening, reports the LA Times . I find it interesting in these sort of articles how the explanations for the success of films like this, are pretty meagre. Cloverfield only cost $25 million to make, so its already broken even in that respect, although apparently the marketing campaign cost more then production. The reasoning given by the Times for its success... it was pet project of the a studio exec, and the good 'buzz' generated on the Internet was reinforced by good reviews. Two important questions are not really answered. What made it a good movie? What made people think it would be a good movie before they saw it? Apparently its a good movie because people went to see it, and people went to see it because its a good move. And people say Hollywood isn't insightful! The other reasons given for it's succes...

After months of drooling over the clever viral campaign and teaser footage, I finally saw Cloverfield last Friday. Sigh. Sometimes I wish all Hollywood features would only be a maximum of five minutes long, then it might be possible for them to just be on par with their trailers. I think Manohla Dargis over at the New York Times summed Cloverfield up succinctly when she said, Like too many big-studio productions, “Cloverfield” works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt. What disappoints me, and this isn't the first time JJ Abrams has disappointed me, is that the basis of this film is an excellent conceit, but it seems rushed and not very thought through. I will admit that I loved Shyamalan's 'Signs', and one of the best moments in that film is when Joaquin Pheonix's character, sitting in the closet, ...