Paramount is moving forward with a new Cloverfield movie after hiring a director to tackle the fourth entry in the franchise. Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams were responsible for launching the Cloverfield franchise in 2008 with the eponymous found-footage-style monster movie. The movie became quite a success story for the two filmmakers and Abrams' Bad Robot production studio, as it made over $170 million at the box office off a $25 million budget. It took eight years for the next installment to come out, as Dan Trachtenberg's 10 Cloverfield Lane became a surprise addition to the mythology. The third film, The Cloverfield Paradox, arrived on Netflix in 2018 as an unexpected drop after the Super Bowl.
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The Cloverfield franchise remains one with major appeal for Hollywood, even though Cloverfield Paradox was critically panned and dumped on Netflix out of fear of the poor reviews. The low-budget sci-fi adventures have been a great place for filmmakers to make a name for themselves. It also presents a lot of freedom for its stories, as the three Cloverfield movies released so far have had little connection to each other. The two sequels were not even developed with a link to the franchise in mind, as the Cloverfield teases came in much later on. As a result, there have been multiple reports over the years of other secret Cloverfield movies (like Overlord) and hopes of a real sequel being made.
It has now been revealed by Deadline that Paramount is moving forward with plans for a new Cloverfield movie. The outlet revealed that Paramount and Bad Robot have hired Babak Anvari to direct the fourth Cloverfield movie, this one written by Joe Barton. Anvari has made three movies so far in his career, with Netflix's I Came By his most recent directorial effort. Plot details have yet to be revealed, and it is unknown if the movie will be a sequel to a previous movie or another anthology entry.
Is The New Cloverfield Movie Really Cloverfield 2?
Development on the new Cloverfield movie could be a sign that Paramount is finally moving forward with its plans to make a proper Cloverfield 2. The studio has repeatedly expressed an interest in continuing the story from Matt Reeves' original movie and said in 2018 that it was in the works and coming soon. It was not until 2021 that Paramount began actively developing Cloverfield 2 when reports surfaced that Joe Barton was writing a new entry in the franchise that was described as a Cloverfield sequel. Barton has said in the time since then that the movie was still moving forward, and now Babak Anvari is directing his Cloverfield script.
Unless something drastically changed with Joe Barton's Cloverfield script during the last year and a half of development, it would appear that Paramount's new Cloverfield movie really is Cloverfield 2. That makes Anvari's hiring even more exciting and explains why Paramount is already promoting the development of a new Cloverfield movie. When 10 Cloverfield Lane and Cloverfield Paradox were first announced, they had different titles so the franchise connections were not known. With the studio changing course to acknowledge Anvari is directing a new Cloverfield movie, that could be another piece of evidence that it is directly tied to the original film.