There's been a lot of Cloverfield chatter on the web lately, so let's try to clear some of it up, shall we? Everything started back in 2008 with writer Drew Goddard and director Matt Reeves's original film, produced by J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The found-footage film was shrouded in secrecy right up until its release. Afterwards, however, the monster movie, which put actors like T.J. Miller, Lizzy Kaplan, Odette Annable, Jessica Lucas, and Mike Vogel in the spotlight, failed to make good on its promises that another entry would arrive anytime soon.
Jump forward in time to 2016 when, surprise!, Dan Trachtenberg's 10 Cloverfield Lane arrived. The claustrophobic, psychological thriller from screenwriters Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken, and Damien Chazelle and starring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher Jr. established the "Cloververse" as a loose anthology of films that could vary by cast, genre, and storytelling style, but all existed in the same world. The fictional part of that world includes an Earth at the mercy of an alien/monster invasion with a human resistance force attempting to combat it; the real-world portion has Bad Robot, Paramount, and Abrams in common, which are pretty much the only tethers to the still-secretive "Cloververse."
More recently, and with a much shorter time jump between films, we've had our eyes on Cloverfield 3, also known as God Particle and, more recently Cloverfield Station. The third film in the 'verse was teased by Abrams nearly two years ago, though it was uncertain at the time--ie, before the success of 10 Cloverfield Lane--if it would ever see the light of day. It certainly seems like it will, since the new film was directed by Julius Onah and features an ensemble cast that includes David Oyelowo, Ziyi Zhang, Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The plot revolves around astronauts on a space station "who make a terrifying discovery that challenges all they know about the fabric of reality, as they desperately fight for survival”, but just how the "Cloverfield" factor works its way in remains to be seen; Brühl teased a bit about it at great personal risk. Additionally, Paramount might be looking to jettison the film--and possibly the entire "Cloververse"--to Netflix for a primo price. The current release date is set for April 20th, so we expect to hear something more concrete on this front sooner than later.
And speaking of sooner than later, there's Cloverfield 4, a.k.a. Overlord. We first reported on this film last March once we caught wise to the fact that the same production team was behind each of the Cloverfield movies. Much like the previous films twisted the Cloverfield style a bit, expect more of the same from Overlord: Directed by Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) and scripted by Billy Ray (Captain Phillips) and Mark L. Smith (The Revenant), Overlord will follow a group of American paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines on the eve of D-Day. On the approach to their target–a village under Nazi occupation–they start to realize there there’s more to this place than a military operation. Jovan Adepo (Fences) and Wyatt Russell (22 Jump Street) are on board as the leads. That film was scheduled to start filming last May, so it should be well and truly done by now and ready for release whenever Abrams/Bad Robot/Paramount/Netflix want to release it into the world.
The previous plan to release a new "Cloververse" movie each year clearly got botched somewhere along the way, but a double feature release in 2018 could be a great way to play catch-up. We'll update you with more details as we learn them, but for now, expect to hear more on the upcoming "Cloververse" films before the year is out!
