Rumors of a sequel to the found footage monster flick Cloverfield have floated ever since that movie was a surprise hit in 2008. Produced by JJ Abrams, Cloverfield is the movie that kicked off the JJ Abrams School of SECRETY SECRETS, as its ad campaign was mysterious and baffling and featured an all-time great trailer. Well, last night at the first screenings for Michael Bay’s 13 Hours, Paramount released a trailer for a movie called 10 Cloverfield Lane. Is this the long-awaited sequel to Cloverfield? JJ Abrams won’t confirm or deny, calling it a “blood relative” of Cloverfield. SECRETY SECRETS.
The trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane is tight, especially the song selection and way it’s edited with the footage, but it’s not as immediately gripping as that first trailer for Cloverfield. It does raise some questions, though, namely why is Mary Elizabeth Winstead chained to a bed? And we have a mystery going on outside, with John Goodman yelling, “You’re going to get us all killed.” So we know that Winstead is playing a reluctant guest in John Goodman’s creepy bunker, and there is Something Outside. And that’s probably all we’re going to get until this movie comes out on March 11.
It has not been a secret that JJ Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot—aka, the tightest ship in Hollywood—was working on a movie. This project used to be called “Valencia”, and it was running test screenings not too long ago. But with everyone so thoroughly fixated on New New Star Wars, Abrams and his team were able to get this movie made without drawing too much attention to it. Undoubtedly he planned it that way. Nobody loves a mystery box more than JJ Abrams. The only problem with the mystery box is the lesson we actually learned with Cloverfield—what comes out of the box has to live up to the hype. Cloverfield, in the end, didn’t live up to its trailer. Can its sequel/companion piece deliver?
