SciFi.com is reporting that the Cloverfield sequel is on hold until an idea as interesting as the original is thought up. This is according to director Matt Reeves, who also said, "We're still kind of toying with what it's going to be and whether or not we're going to find something that will be as exciting for us to make and, hopefully, for an audience to watch. So we'll see. It's really in the baby, baby stages. And right now it's definitely on hold until we come up with what that would be." All previous chatter has suggested a prequel, and Reeves confirms that it's under discussion. [via Pop Candy] more ›

Last week the NY Times' House & Garden section took a look at the mysteries planted by an architect in a ritzy Fifth Avenue apartment. This week, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety report that Paramount has purchased the rights to the article for a feature to be produced by J.J. Abrams. Writers Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky have already been hired to adapt the piece into a film. more ›

If you haven't tired of Cloverfield yet, chances are you will by the time the sequel hits the big screen. That's right, the monster smash will be followed up, and it may be soon. Variety reports that Matt Reeves is already in talks with Paramount to direct, and it may even be his next project. When we interviewed him earlier this year, he said his next project would be The Invisible Woman, but now that may get pushed back for this sequel. more ›

href="http://londonist.com/2008/01/6_years_on_amne.php">Amnesty International bringing Guantanamo Bay to the American embassy to raise the profile of the continuing campaign to close the detention center.

Say, did you hear anything about this movie that opens today, Cloverfield? No? Yeah, it’s kind of a [Spoiler Alert!] obscure art-house thing, all shot with a camcorder from the perspective of a few friends fleeing a massive monster smashing Manhattan. We attended a screening earlier in the week and deemed it top-shelf disaster porn; though the main characters are rather annoying and the apocalypse takes a little too long to blast off, “by the time that massive beast slouches toward lower Manhattan, bowling the head of the Lady Liberty with a nonchalance befitting the Bush administration, you’ll be almost as bloodthirsty as the monster.” And blood you’ll get, along with spectacular special effects and almost relentless suspense. more ›

The last sentence uttered before all hell breaks loose is, “Forget about the rest of the world and hold onto the ones you care about.” Though probably unintentional, those words of brotherly advice – spoken to a lovesick young yuppie named Rob – perfectly sum up the prevalent attitude in fin de siècle New York: the world’s spinning into a cataclysm of total war and catastrophic climate change, but fuck it; let’s party and get ours. And in Cloverfield, the well-connected young Manhattanites at the story’s center do indeed get theirs, just not the way Gossip Girl said they would. more ›

Recently at one of our sister sites, LAist's Julie Wolfson spent an afternoon with Cloverfield director Matt Reeves. In the interview that follows he spills some juicy details about the film, including what the title really means, which will be in theaters this Friday. more ›

The mystery surrounding the new J.J. Abrams movie, which tore up the LES last year, will soon be in the past as it finally hits the big screen this week. Cloverfield (long thought to be just a code name for the movie) will be unleashed this Friday, and is getting some great reviews. But what everyone wants to know is: what does the monster that's responsible for decapitating Lady Liberty look like? One description from that review: "He's a fiend that a heroin addict might see in his sleep during his first night in rehab." more ›

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Gothamist. more ›

You could be the very first to see CLOVERFIELD before it comes out on January 18th! Below, you'll find a very special Cloverfield Widget, which includes an introduction from JJ Abrams, and 5 whole minutes from the film! Whoever gets the most people to "Grab" their widget will get to be the very first person to see the movie with 30 of their friends in the city of their choice. more ›

Forget the new JJ Abrams film about a fictional monster attacking New York...the Mulberry Street monster is a real-life city menace: the rat! Many rats actually, like more rats than they have at Peter Luger and Da Silvano's...combined! The movie, which came out last year, is summarized as follows: "a deadly infection breaks out in Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty rat creatures. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their... more ›

The new trailer for Cloverfield (the JJ Abrams movie due out in January) has been released, and only proves a tad more revealing than the first. With a giant monster destroying New York City, this movie will certainly be for those who like "destruction porn," because nothing really beats the Statue of Liberty being decapitated... Abrams turned the Lower East Side into a war zone earlier this year, but he's been hush-hush about any details... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Utica Ave. in Brooklyn, an attempted bank robbery on East Fordham Rd. in the Bronx, and a large tree down on East 114th St. and 91st Ave. in Queens..
• Buzz over the much-anticipated J.J. Abrams feature code-named "Cloverfield" has precipitated to something much more solid: a feature named "Cloverfield." The Internet's been speculating about the horror-thriller with a trailer that includes the decapitation of the Statue of Liberty for months.
• Writers' strike be damned, late night hosts like Letterman, Leno, and Conan may be back on the air sooner rather than later.
• ConEd is shutting down its last direct current power plant in New York, which was located in Midtown East Manhattan. New York's first power plant was on Pearl St. and founded by Thomas Edison himself, who favored direct to the more currently prevalent alternating current.
• A Brooklyn man was arrested for allegedly marking cards at CT's Mohegan Sun casino in a game of Texas Hold 'Em.
• Today was the last day of New Yorkers for apply for relief aid after August's damaging storms. Applicants can call 1-800-621-FEMA, or apply through www.fema.gov.
• A thief shot himself, after attempting to shove a gun in his pants during a Long Island home invasion.
• Sen. Fred Thompson and L&O alumnus returns to NYC.

Ghostbusters has been in the form of a videogame ever since it hit the big screen in 1984, and since then it's been through many versions and platforms. Seems it has taken nearly 24 years to perfect it though, as it's just been announced the movie will haunt us til the end up time with a series of top-notch videogames to come.First title in what the publisher hopes will be a series of Ghostbusters games... more ›

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. more ›

The new J.J. Abrams movie which is still listed as Untitled, but is unofficially being referred to as Cloverfield, was filming on the Lower East Side yesterday and last night. Did anyone catch it? The monster movie is due out January 18th, 2008 - and this past week Abrams spoke of the somewhat mysterious project at Comic-Con. more ›

Hot pilot news: One of Gothamist's favorite TV producers, the brilliant Tom Fontana, will be headed to the WB with a drama series set in a "small liberal arts college in NYC" that will center around a human behavior class. Fontana said, "The show specifically centers on a human behavior seminar where (the students) openly talk about their sexual lives or the lack of sexual lives and come to understand themselves and the world they live in better." It'll film in NYC (we guess the pilot will probably get a Made in New York logo), and Gothamist found this tidbit in the Variety story (unfortunately, subscription necessary) a hoot: more ›