The Unused Shot That Earned The Film An R Rating

Another alternate scene almost got the film an R rating. Dan explained on the Cloverfeels podcast that they shot a different version of the scene where Howard shoots the gun and we saw the brutal and bloody repercussion to Emmet’s head.

Actually, we did shoot a version that I never wanted to use by my AD really had bloodlust and was like “we gotta do it while we’re here.” We saw Emmet getting shot in the head and it was horrifying. We put it in the movie at one point and got an R rating.

Trachtenberg says that the shot will not be on the Blu-ray or in a director’s cut because “that was never what I wanted for the movie.” Sounds like it was unnecessary.

The Ending Almost Had An IMAX-Style Aspect Ration Expansion

Also on the Cloverfeels podcast, Trachtenberg explained that he had originally planned to have the final segment of the film expand into a larger aspect ratio, imitating the effect that we see in some IMAX movies.

We shot the movie on the RED Dragon. We shot the whole movie anamorphic, 2.40, but the end of the movie we shot spherically, because at the time the ultimate dream was what if this expanded into IMAX. “oh that will never happen.” But I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we could recreate that experience [in a normal movie theater]. We shot spherically near the end, 1.85 aspect ratio, which is slightly less wide, so that [the movie] would be letterboxes throughout but the aspect ratio would shift up in that wide shot, and everything else would be filling the frame.

How cool would that have been? Trachtenberg explains that ultimately they didn’t have the budget or time to complete the needed shots for an expanded aspect ratio and the really cool idea was abandoned. Too bad they can’t finish those effects shots for the Blu-ray release as I think the effect would still work on a widescreen television.

Winstead’s Performance Was Driven Partially By a Real Life Fever

Mary Elizabeth Winstead was not shown concept art of the aliens when they shot the final scenes of the film. Trachtenberg felt it would be “silly” because “it doesn’t matter if it has a third eye or a tail or whatever,” since “she’s not going to be thinking about a giant three-eyed thing chasing her because you can’t relate to that, you can’t draw on that.” It was also revealed that Winstead filmed that final scene while she had a 102-degree fever, which may have even helped the misery in her performance. Trachtenberg was also sick during the shoot, and completely lost his voice.

The Design of the Alien Creatures and Spaceships

Trachtenberg also told Hitfix that he “always wanted this icky, gross, worm-like thing” for the creatures themselves, inspired by Tremors which “really affected” him as a child. On the Cloverfeels podcast, Trachtenberg explained that the design of the alien spacecraft “really evolved over time,” a combination of Abrams and his ideas.

I was big on making a ship that felt organic. I love the idea of the ship being a creature also. For both the creature and the ship, J.J. was very fixated on it feeling armored and mechanical. So the creature was a hybrid of both of our ideas, on one hand being very icky, that worm but also being armored. And the ship kind of resembled a little version of that. And the tentacles, I always loved looking at that deep sea Marianas Trench stuff because thats real life things that look horrifying. I liked the idea of making an alien species that felt like something out of our own deep sea, and thats where the look of that came from.

I’d love to see what the other designs for the 10 Cloverfield Lane creatures looked like, and thanks to the internet we have a look at a couple of the alternate choices.

10 Cloverfield Lane Concept Art

Concept designer Raul Dominguez has posted a bunch of images or early alien creature that he created for the film: