The marketing and release of 2008’sCloverfieldwas undeniably cool. In the middle of the internet age, the fact that folks could go in to seeTransformersand be treated to a trailer for a movie they’ve literally never heard of was unique, and harkened back to the showmanship of old. So whenCloverfieldfinally came out, fans were already clamoring for another experience just like it.
There’s been talk of a sequel for years, with producerJ.J. Abramsfielding the brunt of the questioning along withCloverfielddirectorMatt Reeves. Both filmmakers obviously moved on to bigger and very time consuming things (Star TrekandStar Warsfor Abrams, theApessequels for Reeves), but Abrams pulled a fast one on audiences once more by dropping the trailer for10 Cloverfield Lanelast month, announcing the existence of a potentialCloverfieldsequel just two months before it opens in theaters.
Directed byDan Trachtenberg, the film starsMary Elizabeth Winsteadas a woman who wakes up in a bomb shelter with two men (John GoodmanandJohn Gallagher Jr.) who claim to have saved her from an unknown menace outside, with Goodman’s character insisting that everyone on the outside is dead. Exactly what kind of connection the film has toCloverfieldremains a bit of a mystery, but Abrams recently spoke toEWabout the film, and he had a word of warning for folks expecting to see the literalCloverfield 2:
“There is a monster in this movie. It’s not the monster you expect, but there is a monster. The thing that I will say about anyone who is going to it expecting to see literallyCloverfield 2, those characters and that monster are not in this movie, but there are other characters and other monsters. It’s a very different story, but it is a spiritual successor to that movie. What I hope is that they will be satisfied by wanting to see something that is not of this natural Earth and not necessarily something that you would expect, and I hope that what they find gives them that fix, that thrill that I think they might be looking for in a literalCloverfield 2movie.”
So no, the outside menace in10 Cloverfield Laneis not the same monster that plagued the characters in the original film, but thereisa connection between the two movies. Abrams revealed why they opted to go this route for theCloverfieldfollow-up instead of making a traditional sequel:
“I was always surprised at how frequently people would talk aboutCloverfield. But we’re in a post-Godzilla, post-Pacific Rimtime. Doing a giant kaiju monster movie needs to have a really great reason to exist, otherwise it becomes just another version of the thing we’ve all seen. We talked about it quite a bit, but nothing presented itself that demands it get made.”
And then the script for10 Cloverfield Lane—then titledThe Cellar—arrived:
“This script came in and had an incredibly strong central conceit. It was a very powerfulTwilight Zoneidea. We began developing the story, and we came upon some things where it became clear to us, that we were in a very interesting place, because the story was wholly original, a very different situation, different characters from anything we’ve done. But the spirit of it, the genre of it, the heart of it, the fear factor, the comedy factor, the weirdness factor — there were so many elements that felt like the DNA of this story were of the same place thatCloverfieldwas born out of.”
The idea, then, spurred thatthiscould be theCloverfieldsequel that fans have been demanding for years:
“It just became clear that as we were working on the movie, this could be something that is not the sequel that anyone might expect. It’s not the continuation of the story that people might think of, but it was so clearly associated. There was such a clear Venn diagram of these two things, it felt like if we were literal about connections to the first movie but in no way that people might expect us to be, it could be it’s own thing. We very intentionally didn’t call this movieCloverfield 2, but we realized that there was enough of a connection, and the movie was good enough that it warranted this association in a way that we think is justified and exciting.”
Abrams added that in choosing to make this theCloverfieldfollow-up, he very intentionally wanted to give audiences the sequel theyreallywant, not the sequel they think they want:
“What I interpreted was people wanted to see another point of view. People want to see what happens afterward. People want to see that the monster survived the attack. People want to see if there are more monsters. All of those things were clear. I got what people were asking about, but I also know that the desire to see a sequel doesn’t necessarily justify making one.”
For Abrams’ part, he thinks fans will be pleased with10 Cloverfield Lane:
“I think this kind of release and the movie is a complete thrill ride, very smartly told. It is really scary. It is incredibly weird. It’s funny. It has a huge heart. There’s an incredible main character that Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays. She’s terrific in the movie. It’s beautifully directed. I think there are some incredibly cool special effects. It ends up doing all of these things that I love in a movie. It’s got all of the things thatCloverfieldhad, without making you throw up because it’s not a found footage movie.”
By teasing a tentative connection toCloverfield, Abrams and Paramount no doubt hope to bring in folks who may have been put-off by an original sci-fi film. But, for all intents and purposes, that’s what10 Cloverfield Laneis, and with this cast and crew, plus theCloverfieldties as a cherry on top, this is definitely something to be excited about. An should this film become a success, Abrams and Co.already have an idea for a third movie. Luckily we don’t have long to wait, as10 Cloverfield Laneopens in theaters on March 11th.
For more from Abrams, including how the whole “mystery box” thing has been blown out of proportion, check out the full interview at EW.
