8 Horror Movies That Were Filmed In Total Secrecy

The original Cloverfield movie changed the game when it came to film marketing.

In the build-up to its release, teaser trailers were dropped showing seemingly real footage of giant monsters. There was no name attached to the project, leaving moviegoers very confused but highly intrigued.

Once it was revealed that this was paving the way for the Matt Reeves-directed, J.J. Abrams produced Cloverfield, the film had already been shot. Now they just had to wait and see if this unorthodox marketing approach would pay off.

And boy did it.

Cloverfield became a sensation, breathing new life into both the found footage and Western kaiju genres. On a budget of $25-30 million, the film returned $172.4 million. Now that's a monster-sized load of cash.

It's fantastic that Abrams and co. put so much effort into presenting Cloverfield as something special and that they kept this tradition up when its sequel rolled around.

Although, this is the guy who co-created Lost, so maybe we shouldn't have been too surprised that he didn't follow the conventional route.

Just be grateful that Cloverfield's beastie didn't turn out to be The Smoke Monster in disguise.