Keeping Track of ‘Cloverfield’

A few days ago, I caught Paramount and Bad Robot’s newest theatrical feature, Overlord.

A sort of World War II horror thriller-cum-action drama, the Julius Avery-directed venture is bombing at the box office. Costing $38 million to make, the film coughed up $10 million on its opening weekend and fell over 60% in its sophomore frame, indicating that it’s not going to catch on with audiences. Worldwide numbers are not promising, either. We can perform the autopsy, we can try to explain what happened till we are blue in the face. I chalk it up to Paramount giving little marketing love to the movie (the usual) and the rather dodgy release date. I get that Paramount was trying to avoid Halloween and other October competition, but the second weekend of November? Would’ve been an ideal mid-to-late September release, if not for the presence of The Nun.

Now, what does this movie have to do with Cloverfield?

For a long while, it was speculated that this WWII sorta-kinda zombie flick would be the fourth entry in the fledgling Cloverfield series.

Yes, that little J.J. Abrams-run series that kicked off ten years ago with the found footage monster movie of the same name. Some eight years later, that movie got its continuation in the form of 10 Cloverfield Lane, an almost entirely unrelated, intimate, small-scale thriller set in a bunker. J.J. had called it things like “blood relative,” but by the time the movie was out, it seemed like J.J. and company had a unique plan for this series of movies… Future Cloverfield installments would not follow-up on the monster attack on New York City that the first movie covered, but instead they would be similarly weird horror-tinged sci-fi tales. Episodes of a big screen Twilight Zone, if you will. Each story is different from the last, the only connection is the name: The cryptic “Cloverfield”. It’s the name of the operation carried out in the first movie, and of course, it’s the address of the bunker in the second one.

All seemed fine and well, until a little movie called God Particle came along. God Particle was originally slated for a spring 2017 release, and because it was a Paramount/Bad Robot picture, people immediately speculated that it would be the third Cloverfield movie. After all, 10 Cloverfield Lane was a similar situation. The project began life as an unrelated thriller called The Cellar, which Paramount planned to release through their InSurge label, a banner meant for tiny budgeted pictures. Once Bad Robot got a hold of the project, that’s when it metamorphosed into 10 Cloverfield Lane. Whiplash and La La Land director Damien Chazelle was brought on to touch up the original script, and the ending was changed from its original ambiguous one into an all-out action-packed coda where protagonist Michelle (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) does battle with some alien invaders after escaping her abductor (played by a terrifying John Goodman). A country mile from Michelle driving to a nearby city, only to see it in ruins.

Upon release, the movie got very positive reception, but some felt that J.J. cheapened out by taking someone else’s little movie and giving it a Cloverfield makeover. Others preferred if the movie ended without any aliens or any attack. I for one was onboard, and I had read the original ending of The Cellar, and didn’t find it to be exponentially better than what we ended up getting. I understand some frustrations, maybe The Cellar would’ve worked as some standalone thriller unrelated to any franchise, but I think it’s great the way it is. So after learning about what 10 Cloverfield Lane would be, I was surprised. All those years, I expected J.J. to come back with either a follow-up on the monster attack, or the same attack but filmed by some other person who happened to have his/her camera on. Abrams, in an interview, pointed out someone recording when the group was attempting to get across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Over the years, once he was wrapped up in Star Trek and Star Wars, he quietly sounded the death bell for any potential series, or so some of us may have thought. Abrams felt that the kaiju (read: giant monster) genre might’ve been “played out,” what with the successes of Pacific Rim and the 2014 Godzilla film. The film was right in front of us the whole time, a Bad Robot production scheduled for spring 2016 that was reportedly called Valencia.

So were Abrams and co going to do the same with the low budget space station-set picture God Particle? Once folks caught on to what appeared to be the strategy, Paramount pushed God Particle back to fall 2017, and it was now known as “Untitled Cloverfield”. Outright saying it was a Cloverfield movie, surprise over. After more delays, Paramount shocked everyone once again… by not only demoting the film to the small-screen via Netflix, but debuting the trailer out of nowhere during the Super Bowl, and releasing the film right after the big game. It was certainly an effective strategy, one that even some of the crew involved were not privy to. You thought the surprise was ruined, but Abrams found a way…

Titled The Cloverfield Paradox, the $50 million-costing installment was greeted with very negative reviews and less-than-stellar viewing numbers. Paramount saved themselves, for the microbudget movie had actually gone overbudget when J.J. was trying to morph it – an unrelated sci-fi film – into something Cloverfield-y during post-production. The space station donned the name “Cloverfield” (Cloverfield Station was a working title, a better one if you ask me), and it had actual elements from the 2008 film in it: The monster, New York being attacked, etc. All of the creature attack stuff was not there in God Particle. God Particle was set almost entirely on the space station, little else. However, the monster attack that goes down in the finished movie is not the same one that occurred in Cloverfield. This movie is set in 2028, the monster is a little different-looking and perhaps older and bigger than the original one, and it’s implied that the particle accelerator in the space station created something of a rift, affecting other timelines, which could explain the satellite falling out of the sky at the end of the first Cloverfield.

Suffice to say, most folks didn’t dig it. In a sense, the movie’s immediate release prompted people to just check it out, without reading any reviews… Regular viewers and fans were seeing it first alongside the critics. This is very unorthodox (ha, get it? Something-o-dox?) in a day and age where the reviews get out first. Day and age? That’s been the norm for most movies. Nope, we all saw it at the same time. For me, it was just an OK sci-fi thriller. It presented some interesting ideas, it had solid acting, some cool action, but the on-the-ground stuff felt like it was forced into a movie that didn’t need it. What worked about 10 Cloverfield Lane was that the aliens at the end were different aliens, they didn’t resemble the raging infant monster in Cloverfield, they had nothing to do with that creature or that attack. A totally different timeline altogether. Cloverfield Paradox‘s monster stuff feels like a redo of the first movie, but with very little of the tension or thrills that made it so good. Why did it have to be there?

It can be argued that the project was doomed from the start, because a lot of the criticism of the movie was leveled at the space station stuff. If God Particle had been released as is, it probably wouldn’t have gotten better reception, and it could’ve flopped at the box office. Comparisons were made to Life, a similar space thriller that got pretty mixed reviews at best.

Overlord, I think, without ANY alterations, could’ve fit in snugly with the first two Cloverfield films. It’s got a horror-thriller vibe, there’s zombies and sci-fi elements, there’s elements of mystery, lots of fun stuff. I think it gels perfectly with the “weirdo sci-fi story anthology” plan that they wanted for this series, while I think Cloverfield Paradox goes against a lot of that planning. Heck, they wouldn’t even have to change the title. Imagine if 10 Cloverfield Lane was simply called Valencia, but was still part of an anthology series that included the original Cloverfield. One that didn’t necessarily need an overall name like “Cloverfield”. Like imagine that series: Cloverfield, Valencia, God Particle, Overlord… These rather ambiguous names, all part of one anthology series… That way, they wouldn’t have to force “Cloverfield” into every title. The name could simply appear in random places, like Slusho and Tagruato – Easter Eggs pertaining to different things – do. You know what else would’ve fit in this anthology perfectly? A Quiet Place. There reportedly were talks of integrating it at one point during production. Abrams’ own Super 8 would’ve been a great part of it, too, but alas…

So now the next Cloverfield movie appears to be a direct follow-up to the original. This was announced back in April during CinemaCon, at that same event J.J. had also confirmed to fans that Overlord was going to be its own movie, not connected to Cloverfield whatsoever. I’ve felt mixed on this announcement, honestly…

I loved the idea of a big screen movie franchise eschewing traditional continuity and just going the anthology route. Not an anthology movie, but an assortment of sci-fi movies set in different timelines that just happen to be part of the same series. J.J. likened it to an amusement park, with each movie being a different ride. Again, I think the Twilight Zone comparison is apt. We’re even getting a new Twilight Zone series soon, with Jordan Peele at the center of it. I think a direct follow-up to the New York monster attack goes against the idea, but is there even an idea at this point? Is Cloverfield just going whatever direction it damn pleases? Given that this is a J.J. Abrams project, it seems likely…

Lastly… Why do I care so much? I love this series, even with its warts. I was hooked the minute I saw the mysterious for the first film in July 2007, the title-less trailer that appeared before Transformers in theaters without warning. I loved the original a great deal, and 10 Cloverfield Lane as well, so you can bet I’m excited for whatever comes next, even if it may disappoint. However, it’ll be great to know what’s happening…