10 Cloverfield Lane

[megladon8]

So, holy shit.

Cloverfield sequel was secretly filmed by Bad Robot and is coming to theatres March 11!

[Irish]

Never bothered with Cloverfield but I love that trailer.

[Scar]

Saw Cloverfield in the front row with bac0n and Spun. Had a damn good time.

[megladon8]

Yeah, Cloverfield was frickin great. Saw it 4 times theatrically.

[Dukefrukem]

This is real? What the hell.

[Henry Gale]

Me (to myself), yesterday: "Man, I can't believe it's been 8 years since Cloverfield. It's a shame they never got around to doing more with it."

Bad Robot, today (paraphrase): "Hey! That "Valencia" thing Dan Trachtenberg was directing for us is actually a Cloverfield movie and it'll be out in two months!"

:-O

What a fun, one-of-a-kind surprise.

[Henry Gale]

On the other hand, there's a lot of compelling evidence floating around that this is a formerly completed but abandoned project from the now-dead Paramount Insurge micro-budget horror division. The jist is that this was formerly just a regular, original property that operated as a possibly post-apocalyptic, possible bunker-kidnapping thriller that after dismantling the Insurge brand, mothership Paramount didn't know what to do with. So they apparently brought in Bad Robot and Damien Chazelle to re-write and re-shoot significant portions of it with existing director (and former Totally Rad Show co-host) Dan Trachtenberg to become something existing in the Cloverfield universe.

Apparently there were a bunch of test screenings from last year, even as recent as November, who saw the movie under the name The Cellar and described no elements of it evening referencing the monster, Slusho, or any of the corporations mentioned in the extra curricular storytelling that surrounded the original at the time.

Basically, it's very possible this was something the studio was ready to dump forever, but saw an opportunity to make significantly more money with by associating a familiar name and mysterious marketing angle on it. This sort of thing has happened before with direct-to-video properties (sequels that were never meant to be such) in recent years, but this would be something of a first for theatrical experiment. And if all of this is true, and a simple way of testing the waters of the vitality of the Cloverfield name (while potentially killing it for good), then that's a shame.