Movies

LOS ANGELES — It was a classic case of monster envy that led to the rise of Cloverfield, the horror hit about a 350-foot creature stomping through New York City.

Visiting Tokyo with his son a few years ago, producer J.J. Abrams was struck by the omnipresence of Godzilla in toy stores half a century after the giant reptile first terrorized Japan.

"This iconic character had really maintained his position," Abrams told The Associated Press in an interview to promote Tuesday's DVD release of Cloverfield, which set a record for January debuts with a $40 million opening weekend.

"I thought it would be so great if we had our own monster movie, not just Godzilla, not just King Kong," said Abrams, creator of TV's Lost whose big-screen credits include directing Mission: Impossible III and the upcoming Star Trek.

With longtime TV collaborators Matt Reeves directing and Drew Goddard writing the screenplay, Abrams set out to create a homegrown beast beyond the guy-in-a-lizard-suit quaintness of Godzilla flicks, bringing the creature-feature into modern times.

What they hit on was a refreshing mix of monster mayhem and the amateur-video style of The Blair Witch Project as a Manhattan farewell party for a friend being recorded on a handheld digital camera becomes an impromptu documentary of the gargantuan's rampage.

Shot for less than $25 million, a bargain price in Hollywood, Cloverfield heightened its documentary realism by using a cast of unknowns and maximized its limited budget for visual effects by offering scattershot images of the monster and devastation as the characters run for their lives.

"It becomes more effective to have fewer money shots, like Alien and Jaws. When you're not actually seeing things but anticipating them, it can be much more terrifying," Abrams said. "We really tried to take the position that less is more. There are definitely shots where you see the whole thing, but we didn't want to make something where you felt it was becoming overdone."

Abrams and distributor Paramount used similarly clandestine tactics to sell the film, keeping the title under wraps until shortly before its release and offering trailers and online marketing to make movie-goers ask one another, "What in the world is this film?"

Cloverfield, the name of a street near Abrams' office, was a code name for the movie but ultimately became its title because he and his collaborators never hit on anything they liked better.

Given the murky origins of the monster itself and the fact that the story plays out through a discovered tape in the Pentagon's secret files, Cloverfield made sense, said Abrams, who is kicking around ideas for a possible sequel.

"The Manhattan Project or various military actions, there are always titles for these things that sometimes feel oddly benign," Abrams said. "So it felt logical in that regard."