Every day a little more news trickles out about J.J. Abrams’s mysterious next movie, Super 8, due next summer and just starting to shoot now in West Virginia: Some of these nuggets come out against his will, some news is carefully leaked, and some are the kind of cryptic viral hints that Abrams and his company, Bad Robot, are known for mischievously dribbling out in advance of new projects. We think we know the basic plot (no thanks to Abrams!): Indicators point to it being about a cargo train from Area 51 — which was transporting something alien and alive — crashing outside a small Midwestern town in 1979, and a group of teens who capture it on film while messing about with a home movie camera. (You can even see one of those kids in a flash-frame towards the end of the trailer.) But we’re hungry to find out more. As such, Vulture will be tracking all the teasers, hints, and spoilers and updating this slideshow as they trickle out. (Don’t worry: all spoilers will be carefully marked.) Here’s what we know so far
First came the teaser trailer, released before
Iron Man 2 in May and shot long before Abrams began principal photography. At the end of it, as we’re looking at the broken camera lens, a series of letters rapid-fire their way across the glass. Together, they spell
“Scariest Thing I Ever Saw.” Add a “dot.com” at the end of that, and it’ll take you to …
Reminiscent of
Cloverfield’s
Slusho beverage fake ad site , a whole “commercial” site appeared for the advertised Popsicles. It allows you to register for updates, and features a Captain “Coop” Cooper as the official spokesman for Rocket Poppeteers. Some online have posited that this is based on the real Captain Gordo Cooper, a Project Mercury astronaut who claimed that the government was concealing information on UFOs.
Paramount announced a casting call for a film called “Darlings” — which is one of two cover names for
Super 8, the other being “Wickham”.
The call targeted three teen leads: Josh, Collin, and Natalie. The would-be stars must “have great energy and a wonderful sense of humor and thoughtfulness.” Oh, and should “have a Midwestern feel.”
On September 17, Vulture learned the first two people cast in the film:
Friday Night Lights’ Kyle Chandler and
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’s Elle Fanning. We haven’t yet learned what they’ll play, but it seems logical that Fanning would play Natalie, one of the three siblings who likely catch the alien in their viewfinder. As for Chandler, we’re assuming he’d play their dad, just because he’s so damn dadlike on
FNL and we don’t want to live in a world in which he plays an oily FBI man attempting to wrest the footage from the children. UPDATE: Three days later, more cast members were announced by
The Hollywood Reporter: Joining Chandler and Channing will be Ron Eldard, Noah Emmerich, and Gabriel Basso (Laura Linney’s son on
The Big C).
One fine resident of Weirton, West Virginia, where Abrams is currently filming, did a little on-set filming himself, recording one of the movie’s night shoots. What hints can be gleaned from the
five-minute result? Sure to appear in
Super 8 are seventies cars, military jeeps, tanks, lots of soldiers, gun fire, actual fire, and wet streets. Still unseen: The teenagers who, possibly accidentally, capture an alien on film. And, of course, the alien itself.