Netflix has done something no streaming service has done before, drop a title it hasn’t promoted right after releasing its first trailer. It was reported before that the streaming service acquired Paramount and Bad Robot’s Cloverfield sequel and a Super Bowl spot promoting the film would come out. What hasn’t been announced was that Netflix will be making the film available for streaming right after the end of the Big Game. No other promotions have been done for the film ahead of this announcement. It’s a bold move but with a big audience it can be considered a wise move, too. The Super Bowl drew an average of 111.3M people in 2017.
As Deadline points out, this unusual marketing strategy complements the non-traditional marketing campaigns the original Cloverfield has done. Netflix describes the film’s plot as such: “In the near future, a group of international astronauts on a space station are working to solve a massive energy crisis on Earth. The experimental technology aboard the station has an unexpected result, leaving the team isolated and fighting for their survival.” It’s directed by Julius Onah and produced by J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and stars Daniel Brühl, Roger Davies, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyelowo, and Zhang Ziyi.