Cloverfield 3’s Marketing Has Taken An Interesting Step Forward

Cloverfield Rob Marlena and Lily looking up in panic

Up until a couple of weeks ago, it was assumed that this year's still-untitled entry in the Cloverfield anthology was still going to make its February 2 release date. But a quick announcement soon changed that, as the film formerly known as God Particle was moved to its new release date on April 20. So while fans of the franchise that brought us the original namesake feature, as well as its follow-up, 10 Cloverfield Lane, may have been upset that their wait for this new film has gotten that much longer, there's something to celebrate in this whole scenario. The viral marketing campaign is back on thanks to a newly revived and updated version to the Tagruato website.

Folks on the internet have been looking for the official start of a campaign similar to that of the previous Cloverfield films, and in their efforts, they found that Tagruato's home page was back up after being supposedly knocked offline because of some outdated code sometime last year. While the site's message of technical difficulties leans into that real life theory, there's a new message that's been discovered as obscured below the error message on the page. The text roughly reads as follows:

Tokyo -- January 18 2018 Tagruato has begun development on a revolutionary new energy technology. In what CEO Garo Yoshida called a technological great leap forward for our planet, this renewable technology will take at least 4 year to complete, with along with another six years International regulatory bodies to bring the powerful revolutionary energy source by April 18 2028.

This occurrence comes after months of downtime, as the ARG for the new Cloverfield film had supposedly started at San Diego Comic Con last summer, with some fans receiving power banks branded with the Tagruato logo on them. It looks like the subject of power generation is still the common thread between the two components of the viral campaign currently underway, and that's just about right when you think back to what God Particle was initially reported as being about.

In the initial phases of information, director Julius Onah's God Particle was reported as a film about an incident with a particle accelerator, which renders the planet Earth invisible to the crew of the International Space Station. Though it should be noted that writer Oren Uziel did state that the film was re-written to become a part of the Cloverfield universe, so this may or may not still be the case. Whatever is about to happen, it sounds like Tagruato's experiment with this new power source is going to backfire in an epic and frightening way. Though we can't say we haven't been warned.

Through some luck and clever thinking back to the original 1-18-08.com site that was key to the Cloverfield ARG, fans decoding this new campaign have found a new site: 04182028.com. While the message is fuzzy, part of it can be made out as warning about the dangers of something. What it is, we can't tell just yet; but at the very least, it looks like Paramount is getting the crowd ready to return to the Cloverfield universe in full force. The untitled Cloverfield film will be heading to theaters on April 20, but if you're curious what else lurks out there on the calendar, feel free to browse our 2018 release date schedule.

Mike Reyes
Senior Movies Contributor

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.