Direct Cloverfield Sequel in Development

After over a decade of fans asking for it, and two movies that didn’t exactly fit the bill, Paramount Pictures and J. J. Abrams’ Bad Robot are finally developing a proper sequel to the 2008 movie Cloverfield. Details are light on what the movie will feature, which we should have seen coming considering the secrecy surrounding every movie in the series, but confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter is that writer Joe Barton, recently tapped showrunner for The Batman spin-off TV series, will pen the script. Ironically, The Batman director Matt Reeves, who directed Cloverfield, will not be involved. Abrams will return to produce.

The original film was notable for a few different reasons, including its fantastic teaser trailer that played before Transformers six months before its release with no title to be seen. Its viral marketing continued for the rest of that time as well, with the movie tapping into the “Found Footage” motif right as it really started to gain steam in Hollywood. Furthermore the film’s introduction of a brand new monster, which was hinted at throughout the marketing and not seen in the film until near its conclusion, captured audiences imaginations around the world.

Fans hoped for a sequel to follow the movie after it was released, and in fact it made a considerable amount of money at the box office when it debuted so it wasn’t hoping against hope. Nothing happened for years though but 10 Cloverfield Lane was released eight years later, expanding the series not into a direct continuity but a larger connected universe with almost a Twilight Zone like quality to it and with Abrams saying it was more of a “spiritual successor” to the 2008 film.

A third film, The Cloverfield Paradox, was released in 2018 with its only notable contribution to fandom’s memory being the surprise debut of the film. Its first trailer was released during Super Bowl LII with the film premiering on Netflix immediately after the game. The reception wasn’t kind to the movie but it did attempt to connect itself to the 2008 original in a number of ways, including an appearance by the “Clover” monster.

Talks of a proper Cloverfield sequel happened in the early part of 2018, ten years after the film’s release, with J.J. Abrams teasing a proper follow-up in the lead-up to the horror movie Overlord (itself previously rumored to be a part of the Cloverfield universe) “It is not a Cloverfield movie,” Abrams said previously. “We are developing a true dedicated Cloverfield sequel that is coming to theaters very soon.”