It’s kind of great that two months ago, we didn’t even know 10 Cloverfield Lane existed, and now the movie’s set to hit theaters in a matter of days. Producer J.J. Abrams and Paramount Pictures pulled a fast one on us by unveiling the secretive thriller at the very last minute, spurring curiosity about this maybe-kinda-possibly Cloverfield sorta-sequel, and now the studio has released some new images that further the intrigue.
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg, the film was originally conceived of as a contained thriller called Shelter, based on a script by Josh Campbell and Matthew Sutecken, before Abrams and the folks at Bad Robot had the idea to craft this as a film taking place within the same universe as the 2008 monster movie Cloverfield. Whiplash writer/director Damien Chazelle came in to work on the screenplay, and Trachtenberg set about visualizing…well we don’t know just yet as the movie’s still quite secretive, but the basic premise is fascinating.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as a woman who wakes up in a bomb shelter with two men (John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr.) who claim to have saved her from an unknown menace outside, with Goodman’s character stating that everyone else is dead. Is he telling the truth? Does he believe he’s telling the truth? Does he have ulterior motives? We don’t know, but these new images certainly play up the contained thriller aspect of the story, and I’m mighty excited to dive into the film this weekend to see what secrets await. But a word of warning: Abrams has already revealed that the Cloverfield monster is not in this movie, so if you’re expecting a straight-up Cloverfield 2, you may be disappointed.
Check out the new images below. 10 Cloverfield Lane opens in theaters on March 11th.
