J.J. Abrams Considered Having 'The Cloverfield Paradox' Cross Over With '10 Cloverfield Lane'

Since debuting almost exactly a week ago, The Cloverfield Paradox has garnered quite a bit of speculation and attention, with fans trying to determine how it links to the previous Cloverfield films. And apparently, that almost came about in a pretty major way.

During a recent Facebook Q&A to promote Paradox, executive producer J.J. Abrams revealed that he briefly considered having the film's main character, Ava Hamilton (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), meeting 10 Cloverfield Lane's Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

"We've talked about versions of things," Abrams explained. "When we did 10 Cloverfield Lane, we were thinking Michelle – the character Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays – it's such a sort of weird origin story of this kind of incredibly, I think, awesome heroine. The idea of following her story is really cool. And then at one point, we were like, 'You know what would be really cool? What if they crossed paths with Gugu [Mbatha-Raw]'s character Ava?'"

"You start to think of 'what ifs,'" Abrams continued. "And I think the bigger ideas that we've had about where this thing goes haven't necessarily been those ideas, but they've kind of been fun theoretical offshoots."

The possibility of this crossover is certainly an intriguing one, one that might have only further complicated the mythology set up in Paradox. The running theory among those who've seen the film is that Paradox's particle accelerator incident essentially creates the events of both Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, despite them all happening at different points in history.

This means that either the entire franchise takes place in one (very screwed up timeline), or each film is set in its own separate universe, a bit of science that factored into Paradox quite a bit. Having Ava and Michelle cross paths, assuming that the events of 10 Cloverfield Lane had already taken place, would blow a pretty big hole in that whole set up. Or, keeping in line with the multiverse possibility, perhaps the Michelle potentially seen in Paradox would have been that universe's version, who hadn't yet lived through the torture of Howard Stambler's bunker.

Ultimately, it's easy to see why this potential crossover was scrapped, as it creates a pretty unique conundrum for both films. But still, as the Cloverfield franchise marches on, fans are certainly going to be eagerly anticipating more of those connections between movies.

The Cloverfield Paradox is now streaming on Netflix.