It is hard to believe it’s been 15 years since the release of Cloverfield (2008). It seems like only yesterday, Rob’s (Michael Stahl-David) big send-off was disrupted by an oversized uninvited guest and a shaky video shot on a flip phone. While the Cloververse companion films haven’t focused on Clover (the production name for the unidentified creature) or its inspiration to renew giant monsters in Hollywood, there is a definitive line drawn. On one side, we have an abundance of giant monsters, while on the other, we have a few to none.
There has been a decades-long drought for giant monster movies in American cinema since the likes of King Kong (1976). Poor follow-ups like King Kong Lives (1986) didn’t do us any favors. Peter Jackson’s King Kong (2005) may have righted the ship and set the stage, but in the hearts of the larger American audience, the giant monster was still dead. Kaiju fans would beg to differ, knowing exactly where to look in the Heisei era (1984–1995) for the latest Godzilla movie. Still, most American audiences never looked past the rubber suit Haruo Nakajima wore.
The TriStar era (1998) tried to reintroduce Godzilla to us. However, many were less than satisfied with the reinvention of the King of Monsters as an enlarged iguana looking for a place to raise her lounge of Jurassic Park rejects. The creatures from 1993’s Jurassic Park and its early sequels could technically be defined as giant monsters, but dinosaurs are widely accepted as animals, not monsters.
Tremors (1990) and its many sequels might have an argument, but let’s be honest. Snakeoids, Graboids, and Shriekers are not giant monsters. They’re just big. Not even the Queen Bitch from Tremors 5 (2015) qualifies if you consider the release date. The Mist (2007) might have the best argument for staking the claim, but it wasn’t really about the monsters as much as the characters who didn’t know they were there. I doubt even Stephen King would request credit for bringing back giant monsters.
Shortly after the Millennium era (1999–2004), a new star in American entertainment, J. J. Abrams, partnered with Bryan Burk, would come to produce the Matt Reeves-directed movie that rescued giant monsters for the West. In 2008 the found footage film, virally marketed with the title 01-18-08, Cloverfield became America’s reintroduction to the giant monster.
September 11, 2001, was still fresh in our minds, so it was a bold move to show tumbling buildings in New York City. World Trade Center (2006) with Nicolas Cage may have softened the blow. It helped us face the fear and confront the memory. We needed to separate reality from Hollywood. Even two decades later, many of us can’t see a building crumble on film without being reminded. As a culture, we have now accepted the difference between CGI and actual events. In 2008, Rob’s farewell party would end abruptly, but we couldn’t wait for the impact in the fictional world.
The subtle kerplunk off the shore of Coney Island, Brooklyn, had some of us thinking of the fate of Deno’s Wonder Wheel, but we were happy to accept the destruction of New York City if it meant giant monsters had returned for good. Tokyo would no longer be the most popular city to be disfigured by truck-sized footprints and self-inflicted tactical nuclear strikes. Cloverfield cracked the code and paved the way for Pacific Rim (2013), the entire Legendary Pictures Monsterverse, and later, Rampage (2018).
As the Monsterverse ramps up, we can probably expect to be inundated with new giant monsters. Somewhere along the way, the Cloververse dropped the ball and gave us peripheral fodder to keep the franchise alive. Most parallel “sequels” were entered into the Cloververse as afterthoughts. Luckily, A Quiet Place (2018) skirted that effort. Developed initially as Cloverfield adjacent, it rightfully became its own franchise.
There is an untitled Cloverfield sequel in the works, but there’s no promise of giant monsters. Clover was a one-hit wonder whose impact was so deep that it got stuck in its own footprint.
