J.J. Abrams Admits 'Cloverfield Paradox' Began Shooting Before Deciding Franchise Connections

Prior to their releases, fans were aware that both 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Cloverfield Paradox were written as completely unrelated standalone films that J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions tweaked to fit their franchise. To follow-up on the film's surprise release on Netflix earlier this week, Abrams held a Facebook Live Q&A to answers fans' questions and admitted that Paradox began filming before ever determining how the film would tie into either previous installment.

"Originally, it was written by Oren Uziel, who wrote a draft that was its own thing, and was around for a while," Abrams pointed out. "We started to think, 'What are ways that this might fit into the world?' But when we started shooting the movie, it was still something we were thinking about. Because the idea for the Cloverfield series was not so much that it be this narrative throughline, but more that they be these really fun sort of thrill rides. Like, if you imagine an amusement park, that's a Cloverfield amusement park, and every ride has a different purpose, but they all connect in some way or another."

The only connection between the first two films were their names and that they both featured sci-fi themes. Paradox also utilized the "Cloverfield" brand in its title while also establishing that a device used in the film opened up doorways to other dimensions, possibly explaining how that film impacted not only the previous two films but future installments.

"While we were shooting, we were making adjustments," Abrams noted. "This was a movie that went through many different iterations as it went along."

With the mysterious nature of each chapter, fans have analyzed each component of each film in hopes of finding connections. One interesting connection fans noticed is that at the 18:20-mark in Paradox, the device is fired for the first time, and at that same timestamp in Cloverfield, the first power interruption takes place.

"No," Abrams confirmed of whether or not this was intentional. "It's a bizarre coincidence."

The next film in the franchise, currently known as "Overlord," is slated to land in theaters on October 26 (unless, of course, Paramount once again predicts a disappointment and dumps it on Hulu). What could follow that film is still unknown, or, at least, Abrams doesn't want to divulge.

"We're talking about a lot of different things," Abrams confessed. "Obviously, when the time is right, I can't wait to talk about it. But not here, not now."

The Cloverfield Paradox is now streaming on Netflix.

[H/T The Verge]