Can JJ Abrams build not so much a Cloverfield franchise but a brand?
You're watching Beyond The Trailer's review of 10 Cloverfield Lane...
So, JJ Abrams - first of Lost fame then of Star Trek fame and now of Star Wars fame,
which is a lot of fame - has been going around trying to make it very clear that 10 Cloverfield
Lane is NOT a sequel to 2008's Cloverfield. Instead, Abrams has repeated several times
that it's a "spiritual successor". What the heck does that mean?! Well it means that Abrams
is trying to dress up a business decision as a creative decision, but he should just
really come clean because as clear as he's trying to be, he's not being very clear. In
fact, many moviegoers - including myself - expect to see the kaiju from the first movie to show
up somewhere here, and again that's even after I've been told that will not happen. My brain
understands, but the movie fan inside of me does not. So what's really going on here?
Basically JJ Abrams production company, Bad Robot, decided to produce an "ultra low budget"
movie and decided to increase its odds of success by slapping the Cloverfield name on
it. And why not, since they're not doing anything else with the name, like making an actual
sequel. Plus while Cloverfield isn't like, a really highly regarded film or anything
like that, it did launch some solid careers. Director Matt Reeves has taken over The Planet
of the Apes franchise, writer Drew Goddard went on to write and direct The Cabin in the
Woods as well as write World War Z and The Martian - for which he was just Oscar nominated
- TJ Miller just hit the jackpot with Deadpool, or jackpot adjacent since he's not, y'know,
actually Deadpool. So suddenly this tiny film with horrible timing that COULD'VE seemed
like a sci-fi rip-off of the Oscar winning Room, suddenly inherits the mantle of "Cloverfield".
The upside for JJ Abrams is huge, as if this works he'll have his own version of The Twilight
Zone where he can make more movies, TV series, theme park attractions... And the downside?
Relatively zero because remember, this is an ultra low budget movie and he wasn't doing
anything with Cloverfield anyway! Whiplash's writer-director Damien Chazelle, who worked
on this script, along with John Goodman give this movie some additional cache, but then
again cache don't mean shit to an audience that had their hearts set on seeing the monster
from Cloverfield again. I know you told us it won't show up, JJ, but if Cloverfield doesn't
stand for "giant monster" and it doesn't stand for "found footage", it better stand for "quality"
- but then, would anyone really call the first Cloverfield a "quality" film?