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New ‘Cloverfield’ Film Set from ‘Under the Shadow’ Director Babak Anvari, Producer J.J. Abrams

Samantha Bergeson
·3-min read

The apocalyptic world of “Cloverfield” is expanding.

A yet-untitled sequel was announced by Paramount Pictures, as first reported by Deadline, with BAFTA winner Babak Anvari (“Under the Shadow”) set to direct. Screenwriter Joe Barton (“The Lazarus Project”) is penning the script.

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Original “Cloverfield” director Matt Reeves, who went on to helm “The Batman,” is serving as an executive producer, with J.J. Abrams producing from Bad Robot, along with Hannah Minghella and Jon Cohen. Bryan Burk and “Cloverfield” screenwriter Drew Goddard will also executive produce.

The “Cloverfield” universe first started with Reeves’ 2008 fictional found-footage film about a monster attack in New York City. Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller, and Theo Rossi starred.

Eight years later, the 2016 film “10 Cloverfield Lane” marked Dan Trachtenberg’s feature directorial debut and starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a woman held captive by a conspiracy theorist, played by John Goodman. The film’s twist ending proved its events were happening simultaneously with the Manhattan-set “Cloverfield.” Netflix’s “The Cloverfield Paradox” debuted in 2018 with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Bruhl, David Oyelowo, Chris O’Dowd, and Elizabeth Debicki as scientists who open the realm to an alternate reality. “The Cloverfield Paradox” received poor reviews and was considered a flop for the streamer.

It’s unclear yet if the upcoming “Cloverfield” installment will be directly linked to the previous films, be a sequel, or a separate entity.

Director Anvari previously won a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut Filmmaker for “Under the Shadow,” and premiered his sophomore feature “Wounds” starring Armie Hammer and Zazie Beetz at 2019 Sundance before launching on Hulu. He recently helmed Netflix’s “I Came By” with George Mackay, Kelly Macdonald, and Hugh Bonneville. Babak also has a TV development deal at AMC with partner Lucan Toh and their company, Two & Two.

This is the first certified “Cloverfield” installment in years. Following the premiere of “Paradox,” “Cloverfield” special effects supervisor Greg Strasz directed an unofficial “Cloverfield” short film titled “Megan,” which centers around the daughter of Goodman’s character from “10 Cloverfield Lane.”

Screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods also revealed that “A Quiet Place” was almost set in the “Cloverfield” cinematic universe.

“One of our biggest fears was this getting swept up into some kind of franchise or repurposed for something like that,” Woods said. “The reason I say ‘biggest fear’ — we love the ‘Cloverfield’ movies. They’re excellent. It’s just that as filmgoers, we crave new and original ideas, and we feel like so much of what’s out there is IP. It’s comic books, it’s remakes, it’s sequels. We show up to all of them, we enjoy those movies too, but our dream was always to drop something different into the marketplace, so we feel grateful that Paramount embraced the movie as its own thing.”

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