Spoilers for The Cloverfield Paradox lie ahead.
Much has been said about The Cloverfield Paradox in the weeks since the film’s surprise release on Super Bowl Sunday. While reviews didn’t do this sequel any favours, it can’t be denied that The Cloverfield Paradox has kept us talking, especially about its twist ending.
But now JJ Abrams, the producer of the Cloverfield films, has opened up about the film’s ending and what it means for the rest of the series.
“On the one hand you can say ‘well then anything anywhere could be a Cloverfield movie,’ but the intention has never been to take a movie and then slap Cloverfield on it,” Abrams explained on The Empire Film Podcast. “The idea was to say Cloverfield is a kind of umbrella, you know, under which all of sorts of genres and thrill rides can take place.”
Indeed, The Cloverfield Paradox goes out of its way to connect all three films under one storyline about alternate dimensions, monsters, and a sentient hand. The movie opens up the Cloverfield universe in a way that allows future installments to take place on an alternate Earth, timeline, or sometime in the past or future. We’d argue that this wasn’t really a problem before, considering that the first two films felt like a great revival of Twilight Zone-esque sci-fi horror anthology storytelling, but Abrams apparently thought otherwise.
Either way, The Cloverfield Paradox’s time travel/inter-dimensional travel aspect sets up Overlord, the rumoured next film in the series, which takes place during WWII as opposed to the traditional modern day setting.
Abrams and director Julius Onah also confirmed on the podcast that the monster seen at the end of Paradox is indeed Clover from the original Cloverfield. Of course, he’s grown a bit since his initial romp through Manhattan. The Cloverfield Paradox sort of hints that the firing of Shepard particle generator tears a hole into a dimension full of monsters that invade the planet, which is how it’s possible for Clover to show up at the end of the movie.
We’re not sure why the Cloverfield movies have to connect in the first place, but perhaps some of you will be put at ease knowing that creating a cohesive universe was in Abrams’ plans all along. We’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out when Cloverfield 4 (or whatever Overlord is eventually called) arrives in October.