Heroes of Cloverfield

An image of the head of the Statue of Liberty in the streets of NYC.
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Until he pulled a lame double-bluff last week with the title, JJ Abram's upcoming maybe-monster flick Cloverfield was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of the start of 2008 season.

Now in a bizarre development a link has appeared between Abram's latest production and troubled-but-popular TV show Heroes. The trailer for Cloverfield featured adverts for an drink called Slusho, which also has one of those lame tie-in viral advertising websites. In last night's episode of Heroes, the very same drink made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance.

Greg Beerman, Heroes producer, has also posted a blog entry with a series of photos featuring various cast members clutching Slusho-branded cups under the mysterious heading of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" and a promise that "their cultural significance will become clear in the coming months."

Naturally every blogger on the planet has now been furiously speculating that Cloverfield could be anything from a movie set within the same reality/world as Heroes down to being a straight off Heroes spin-off movie.

What is also entirely possible is Beerman or fellow Heroes producer Tim Kring and Abrams are buddies and are playing a massive prank on the more attentive movie-goer. Hell R2-D2 was stuck to the ship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it doesn't mean Spielberg's aliens were uncloaked Jawas.

Is there a link between the two or is this a couple of Hollywood's latest hotshots having a little fun at our expense? The only real established connection between the two is that Universal Studios has an indirect hand in both of them. I guess only time will tell...