You're Not Going Crazy: That New '10 Cloverfield Lane' Trailer Contains Several Subliminal Images
A new trailer for director Dan Trachtenberg's 10 Cloverfield Lane arrived a few days ago and many moviegoers saw it when they turned out in record-breaking numbers to see Deadpool. And if you watched this trailer in theaters and thought something was up, you were right. It turns out that this latest preview contains a subliminal image, something you can only really take in by going through the footage frame-by-frame. And since this is the internet and the internet has never met a mystery it didn't want to solve, the evidence is now available for all to examine.
And it still doesn't make any sense! Different theater chains received different versions of the trailer with different subliminal images included. There are five known variations: one each for AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Carmike and another for every other theater chain. While the detective work was done by folks across Twitter and Reddit and the other usual suspects, ScreenCrush tracked them all down. And now, you can view them in the gallery below and try to puzzle out what all of this means...or if it means anything at all.
The only obvious connection between all of these images is that they're all Navy-themed. There's a murky close-up of a tag on a Naval survival bag, an image from what appears to be a military survival guide, a picture of a football team (which ScreenCrush says is the Navy team), a rolled up magazine of some kind titled "On Deck," and, most mysteriously of all, a monkey dressed like a sailor. Huh. Huh. Since the majority of 10 Cloverfield Lane seems to take place in an underground bunker overseen by John Goodman, maybe we can safely assume that he's a Navy veteran? That would explain his survival skills.
This kind of stuff is the modus operandi of 10 Cloverfield Lane producer J.J. Abrams, a man who certainly loves his mysteries. The original Cloverfield (to which this film is a spiritual sequel with no confirmed direct connection) was preceded by an intentionally vague marketing campaign that teased the internet with hints about the story through viral marketing, fake companies, and even a handful of faux websites. This isn't as extreme as that, but they share some DNA – both movies are asking viewers to look a little closer, even as we wonder if dedicating too much time to such an endeavor would be worth it in the end. It certainly wasn't worth it with the first film, which was very good and had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the final film.
We'll know for sure when 10 Cloverfield Lane opens on March 11, 2016.