Back when it was initially released in 2008, 'Cloverfield' was an experimental movie for a number of reasons.
You had a cast of then-unknowns including Lizzie Caplan, TJ Miller and Michael Stahl-David, a found-footage concept, and on top of that, you also had the very multi-layered marketing campaign for it that involved hidden websites, alternate-reality games, and all sorts of weirdness.
Flash-forward to 2021 and all of that now seems kind of trite. In the intervening years, there's been a sort-of shared universe that's included one pretty good movie - '10 Cloverfield Lane' - and one god-awful movie - 'The Cloverfield Paradox' - but no sign of a direct sequel. Until now, that is.
Paramount and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot Productions have confirmed that Joe Barton is set to pen a screenplay that will take up the story nearly a decade and a half later. Barton wrote BBC's excellent crime thriller series, 'Giri/Haji', and more recently, was made showrunner on HBO Max's 'Gotham PD', an upcoming spinoff series of 'The Batman'.
No title or release date has bee set for the movie so far, but given how successful 'Cloverfield' was both critically and commercially, it's going to be interesting to see where they go with it. On top of that, according to a report by THR, the sequel will not feature the same found-footage concept as the original.
To give you an idea of what that was like in case you never saw 'Cloverfield', imagine seeing this in a darkened cinema.
