Cloverfield is one of the most curious franchises in Hollywood, with just a few seemingly disjointed
movies and a short manga comic to its name. So what's the story behind these stories,
and just how did the franchise come to be? This is the untold truth of the Cloverfield franchise.
J.J. Abrams has built his career on echoing genre movies of the past,
so it probably won't come as a surprise to find that he thought up Cloverfield as a
way of paying tribute to classic kaiju movies. However, the circumstances that informed this
idea were rooted in a more specific personal experience — one that made Abrams realize
the sorry status of American-made monster movies. In an interview, Abrams explained:
"I got the idea when I went to Japan [...] and saw all these Godzilla toys in the
shops. I realised that America hasn’t had a monster movie to call its own,
not since King Kong all those years ago anyway, and thought it was time to change that."
From this toy store encounter sprang a desire that fueled the creation of
not just the original Cloverfield, but an entire sprawling franchise. In the process,
Abrams did indeed create an ultra-intense monster;
one that was more than capable of standing up against cinema's biggest beasts.
One of the most evocative aspects of Cloverfield's marketing campaign was its
emphasis on the beheading of the Statue of Liberty.
The decapitated head closed out the film's initial teaser trailer with a bang,
while a headless Lady Liberty featured as the centerpiece of Cloverfield's poster. By lingering
on this image, Cloverfield instantly crafted an aura of fear and dread around its plot. Obviously,
the Statue of Liberty is something Americans assume will always stand in New York City. When
that gets threatened by an unknown menace — well, that's bound to send a chill up anyone's spine.
Lady Liberty's decapitation was actually inspired by the marketing
materials for a classic 1980s action movie. As Cloverfield director Matt Reeves told IGN:
"The inspiration came from the poster of Escape from New York.
The poster had an image on it of the head of the Statue of Liberty and that image was
nowhere in the movie! And it's an incredibly provocative image."
The title for the original Cloverfield didn't just spring up out of thin air. In fact,
the project went under several working titles before settling on its final moniker.
During production, Cloverfield was known by a number of different temporary titles,
including "Slusho," "Chocolate Outrage," and "Cheese."
Even as the movie's release date approached, Cloverfield had no title to speak of, with
the teaser trailer only promising a release date. It was later reported that the film might end up
going by the name Wreck. As it turned out, this all helped to keep the first Cloverfield movie
cloaked under a veil of secrecy. The project's marketing was defined by its cryptic nature,
and all that constant speculation over the title helped keep up that reputation.
Cloverfield's second trailer, in November 2007, would eventually give the movie its name,
while the movie's follow-ups would further turn Cloverfield into a full-blown brand.
Monster movies tend to function as much as sociopolitical commentary as they do opportunities
to watch huge beasts topple buildings. Just look at the 1954 movie Godzilla, which is a clear
reflection on Japan's nuclear anxiety. In the case of Cloverfield, director Matt Reeves had a
very specific idea of what this particular monster movie, captured through the lens of found footage,
was meant to say about the time in which it was released. Reeves told Shock Till You Drop:
"Cloverfield very much speaks to the fear and anxieties of our time, how we live our lives.
Constantly documenting things and putting them up on YouTube,
sending people videos through email — we felt it was very applicable to the way people feel now."
Reeves also observed how one moment,
in which the lead movie's protagonists encounter another person filming everything, was meant to
remind people that there was more happening in the wider world of Cloverfield. He continued:
"Media is so much an aspect of our lives today that even evoking that idea was exciting to us.
That there could be different stories out there."
"You still filming?" "Yeah. People are gonna wanna know
how it all went down."
While the beast itself was absent from the vast majority of the marketing for Cloverfield,
the film itself does eventually feature the creature that has come to be dubbed
Clover. In the film, Clover only enjoys a fleeting on-screen presence, with the brevity
of its appearances meant to heighten the sense of fear and uncertainty felt by both the characters
and the audience. Despite its minimal screen time, though, a whole lot of care went into this
creature — particularly in figuring out which real-world animals would come to inspire it.
The primary element emphasized in the monster's behavior was terror. Rather than maliciously
choosing to rampage across New York City, Clover was designed to evoke wild animals,
such as elephants or horses, that have become terrified and begun to run amok.
This lent an extra sense of unpredictability to Clover and its actions. There was no evil plan
driving it, nor any complex motivation behind all that chaos. Clover was simply engaging in
random fits of destruction because, above all else, it was frightened.
On a visual level, underwater creatures such as piranhas were channeled into the
design of the monster's face — a nod to how Clover is an extraterrestrial being
that crash landed in Earth's oceans.
Before he won an Oscar for Best Director for his work on La La Land, and even prior to
directing Whiplash, Damien Chazelle was just another artist looking for his big break.
At one point, that break looked like it might come from Bad Robot Productions. J.J. Abrams and
company enlisted Chazelle to write and direct the original version of 10 Cloverfield Lane,
then titled Valencia. Abrams later told Empire magazine:
"Actually, [Damien Chazelle] was originally coming on as a director
as well, and he was working on the script to direct. [...] He
did incredible work with [aspects of] plot and character with his draft."
The eventual director of 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dan Trachtenberg, had nothing but positive
things to say about the feature's original filmmaker. He later told The Q&A Podcast:
"I have so many things to thank him for. [Because he made Whiplash,] I got a chance to make a movie,
and he did a great job with the script. He really gifted me with so many things."
When 10 Cloverfield Lane was in production, its cast and crew knew it only as Valencia,
a low-budget thriller hailing from Bad Robot Productions. However, as production went on,
something changed. Before long, Valencia had become a spiritual sequel to Cloverfield,
and the title was altered to 10 Cloverfield Lane.
"Crazy is building your ark after the flood has already come!"
Rather than being the result of some brilliant plan kept secret by everyone involved in the film,
however, attaching this project to the name Cloverfield was actually a last-minute switch.
Speaking to MovieWeb about how this change came about, director Dan Trachtenberg said:
"We wrote an original screenplay. Cloverfield was not in our mind at the time. During the
development process, the idea came up that it could be in the Clover-verse.
We were a bit surprised initially, but now when you see the movie; it makes a lot of sense in
terms of tone, twists, turns, and the thriller aspect. It was definitely the right decision."
By attaching the Cloverfield name to 10 Cloverfield Lane, this new thriller
was able to stand out more easily in a crowded marketplace. Moreover, following up Cloverfield
with an otherwise standalone project allowed the film to function as a mostly separate
narrative — rather than simply supporting itself on Cloverfield plot points and shout-outs.
For years after the original Cloverfield was released,
news would occasionally come to light suggesting that a direct follow-up was in development.
Just a few weeks after the original debuted, director Matt Reeves even told Rotten Tomatoes
that they were considering a number of active concepts as to where a follow-up might go.
However, the busy schedules of all those involved in the first Cloverfield — and
particularly J.J. Abrams — was constantly cited as a reason why the project wasn't moving forward.
With the release of 10 Cloverfield Lane, Abrams finally had a chance to reveal why
audiences hadn't seen another movie set in the world of Cloverfield. He told Fandango:
"We had so much fun making Cloverfield that when we were done,
we felt like we were done with that movie. And there were a lot of ideas [for
a follow-up] [...] A lot of things were thrown around. But we now live in that post-Godzilla,
post-Pacific Rim era, where those movies have been made. So what would we do?"
With this in mind, Abrams and company opted instead to pursue a more spiritual
sequel to the first movie — and 10 Cloverfield Lane was born.
Much like 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Cloverfield Paradox wasn't always meant to be a part of the
Cloverfield franchise. Originally, it was just a standalone science fiction
movie called The God Particle. However, according to the film's writer Oren Uziel,
it wasn't long before it became attached to an already existing franchise. Uziel told Collider:
"[The Cloverfield Paradox] was written before
10 Cloverfield Lane and the expanded Cloverfield universe even existed as a thing. [...] I don't
know exactly when it became a Cloverfield movie. [...] I think everyone just knew,
if it fits — and it does — into that Cloverfield world, it should, and it can only help."
Uziel emphasized that it's not easy marketing an original movie of any kind these days,
and that The God Particle's association with the
Cloverfield name likely gave it a fighting chance at survival.
In its long journey to release, The Cloverfield Paradox went through a series of reshoots that
were initially shrouded in as much secrecy as anything else in the movie. However, once the
project was officially released on Netflix, more details emerged about what those reshoots had
entailed. Apparently, they had been focused on adding a new Earth-bound subplot to the movie.
During a Facebook Q&A session, J.J Abrams noted that scenes in The Cloverfield
Paradox following Michael Hamilton as he navigates the situation on Earth were not originally part of
the script. They were added during these reshoots at the behest of test screening audiences,
who were curious about what was happening on the ground during the events of the main story, which
takes place in space. This subplot also helped set up the infamous ending of The Cloverfield Paradox,
which explicitly connects the feature to the original Cloverfield with a certain special cameo.
Clover appears and roars
Today, A Quiet Place is its own mega-franchise, one with a widely recognizable brand name that
can generate sizable box office returns with very little effort.
But once upon a time, the first Quiet Place was just another original horror movie.
Not only that, but there was once a moment where it even looked like it would even be
folded into the Cloverfield franchise. Screenwriter Scott Beck told IndieWire:
"I guess it crossed our mind, and we had spoken to our representatives about that
possibility. [...] We were actually talking to an executive [at Paramount] about this film,
and it felt from pitch form that there might be crossover."
Luckily, Paramount had other ideas. Beck continued:
"But when we finally took the final script in to Paramount, they saw it as a totally
different movie [...] I think in part because conceptually it was able to stand on its own."
Given his affinity for original storytelling, Beck was understandably relieved when Paramount
allowed A Quiet Place to stand on its own two legs. And of course, in an ironic twist,
the finished movie became so popular that it spawned a whole new franchise;
one entirely distinct from the Cloverfield name… and arguably more successful, too.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Looper videos about your favorite movies are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.