If feels like just yesterday “Cloverfield” was a big hit and the film’s writer, Drew Goddard, got together with Joss Whedon (“The Avengers”) to announce that his next project would be the horror flick “The Cabin in the Woods.” Everybody said, “That sounds cool,” and waited for Obama to become president.
Four years later, “The Cabin in the Woods” is finally being released. There have certainly been cases of a film’s release date being pushed back (“Titanic,” for example, was originally supposed to be hit the iceberg on July 4th, 1997). In the history of modern mainstream film distribution, it is quite difficult to recall a film outside The Weinstein Company that has had a legitimate poster up in theatres advertising one release date (In the case of ‘Woods,’ February 5th, 2010) only to have the film stay on the shelf for another two years.
It’s easy to assume ‘Cabin’ will be a dud, but we shouldn’t get too tough on Goddard (who also directed the movie). He’s been dealing with MGM's bankruptcy woes that also delayed "Skyfall" and "The Hobbit." The fact that ‘Cabin’ is being released theatrically at all feels like a bit of victory at this point, with Lionsgate now taking on the film and giving it some fresh life.
With that in mind, a poster for the film has dropped and it features a vaguely “Saw”-tinted white background with a floating house at the center, fragmented and turned like a Rubik’s cube. A small credit block takes up the bottom portion of the poster with “From the…writer of ‘Cloverfield’” in tiny letters. You know why? Because four years ago, nobody really cared about ‘Cloverfield’—it was a circus attraction; audiences looked behind the curtain and shrugged their shoulders. If there was any time to exploit that shrug, though, it was four years ago.
We’ve still got a bit of hope for this project though, especially with top quality actors like Richard Jenkins and…well, just Richard Jenkins, attached to this thing. We’ll find out how it all goes down when the film hits theatres on April 13th, 2012. [AICN]
