Abrams’s Mysterious ‘Super 8’ Might Not Be What We Thought It Wasn’t or Something

By  · Published on May 6th, 2010

Except a few random details to come out about J.J. Abrams’s Super 8 over the next days because 1) the trailer launches with Iron Man 2 and B) that’s exactly what Abrams wants.

I, for one, refuse to play his game.

Except for a little while longer, just before I go re-watch every episode of “Lost.”

Damn you, Abrams!

Harry over at Aint It Cool was all giddy on the twitter yesterday, hinting that he got an insider scoop on what Super 8 is, and that it was different from what people were claiming. Specifically – that it wasn’t a sequel to Cloverfield.

Now, there’s a post over at Film Popper that reveals the actual teaser trailer footage. Read on only if you want to be spoiled about knowing that you could be spoiled later by film details:

The trailer starts with a black screen, that says Steven Spielberg is the producer. Then a small written narrative begins that reads something like this. “In 1970 Area 51 was closed down and everything was shipped to an undisclosed location in Ohio”.

Then you see a train carrying lots of cargo loads. Cut to a car driving down the road that jumps up on the tracks and heads straight toward the train.

Cut to black screen and then the words “From Director J.J. Abrams”. Then back to the train and car colliding into each other, the the train derails, the camera slowly zooms in on one of the tipped over cargo cars of the derailed train, then something is punching on the walls inside the train cart trying to escape.

Cut to black screen and then the title ”Super 8“.

So it turns out this is the mystery project Abrams was working on with Steven Spielberg.

Sounds like a fan-made sequel to District 9 to me. Or, frankly, it could still be a sequel to Cloverfield.

What does it sound like to you?

Related Topics: ,

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.