January 31, 2008

Fall Out Boy-Cloverfield Connection Demystified: Writer Drew Goddard Clarifies Wentz's Comments

By James Montgomery, with additional reporting by Jennifer Vineyard (MTV.

Last week, just as Cloverfield was stomping a swath of destruction through the box office, Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz caused a little disturbance of his own, claiming that most of the film was based on his band's Infinity on High album.

Writing in his blog on FOB's site. Wentz said that he and his bandmates went to the Los Angeles premiere of Cloverfield, during which the film's writer, Drew Goddard, told them that he "based much of [the film] on Infinity on High."

"He pointed to some of the lines specifically, mostly on [the FOB song] 'The Takeover,' " Wentz wrote. "It's interesting to see someone else's interpretation of your songs. ... If you get a chance, check out the movie (and keep your eyes open at the end)."

Of course, this piqued the attention of many - including us here at MTV News. Could you really sync up Infinity with Cloverfield, much in the same way bong-addled college kids have been listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in concurrence with The Wizard of Oz for decades now? (Because if this were possible, it would be awesome.) So we reached out to Wentz to get to the bottom of all this.

"Basically, I went to the premiere and [Drew] came up to me. He said the only thing he listened to when he was writing the movie was Infinity on High," Wentz said. "I thought he was just being nice or blowing smoke up my a--, but we were huge fans of his writing on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost, so we kept talking.

"He went on to cite specific songs. He mostly boiled it down to 'The Takeover,' and my mind was blown," Wentz continued. "He said you could sync Infinity and Cloverfield up, like Pink Floyd and The Wizard of Oz. I was like 'Are you serious?' and then he said, 'Well, you probably couldn't, but if we watched it together I could do it for you.' "

There you have it (sort of). If you're partying with Drew Goddard, prepare to have your mind blown. But is it true? Are scenes in Cloverfield directly influenced by the songs on Infinity? Well, to be completely sure, we figured we should ask the guy who wrote those scenes. So, after some haranguing and schedule-clearing (dude was busy), we managed to track down Goddard himself, who admitted to being a huge Fall Out Boy fan but seemed to think that perhaps Wentz has things a little mixed up.

"To clarify ... I was playing their album the whole time while writing Cloverfield. I don't want to undercut [the idea that the movie was inspired by FOB's album], but it was just that the album came out at the same time as I was writing the script, and the way I work, I need music on in the background, and I was playing it, so it was inspiring in that sense, so I told them it was inspiring," Goddard said. "There may have been confusion as far as the movie being inspired by it - and I did mention the whole Pink Floyd/ Wizard of Oz thing, because I bet you would see some crazy sh-- there - but it certainly was not a track-by-track plan."

Straight from the writer himself: Any similarities between Infinity and Cloverfield are purely coincidental. But that doesn't mean that there aren't other possibilities out there. If you find a match, Goddard is more than ready to hear about it.

"[Infinity] will not line up exactly," he said. "But it would be interesting to see if anything does."