A sequel to Cloverfield has been filmed seemingly in secret. Produced by Bad Robot, 10 Cloverfield Lane has been confirmed by J.J. Abrams to be the “spiritual” sequel to the 2008 found footage monster horror film Cloverfield.
“The idea came up a long time ago during production,” Abrams said in a statement to Collider. “We wanted to make it a blood relative of Cloverfield. The idea was developed over time. We wanted to hold back the title for as long as possible.”
The film features John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World & Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and John Gallagher, Jr. (The Newsroom) and will be released in theaters on March 11. It was originally codenamed “Valencia” on Paramount’s release schedule.
If you were wondering what the plot is going to be like, it doesn’t look like there are any monsters in the film, at least from what can be seen in the trailer. Goodman seems to be playing the bad guy, but, as Pajiba so sweetly puts it, “anything that includes perpetual good-guy Goodman potentially being a bad guy is intriguing.”
That being said, 10 Cloverfield Lane’s IMDB page does list several crew roles that include prosthetic design and application, special effects, stunt doubles and a specialty costume maker. Not that any of that means anything in particular but let your imagination wander.
The plot summary lists Winstead waking up after a car accident in Goodman’s bunker basement, unable to go outside because a “a chemical attack…has left the outside uninhabitable.” If any of the possible twists seem glaringly obvious to you, let’s just hope the trailer doesn’t show the whole plot. Winstead does gasp in shock when she peeks into the outside world at the very end.
The short film below is unrelated to 10 Cloverfield Lane, but it’ll be interesting to see how similar the thematic arcs will be.
