The Cloverfield Paradox is many things – a deep-space oddity, an uninspired expansion of the strangest anthology in Hollywood…you name it – but it is not a sign of things to come for Bad Robot’s peculiar franchise.
Sources close to The Wrap indicate that Paramount Pictures fully intends to launch any future Cloverfield movie – be it a prequel or sequel or some amalgamation of the two – theatrically, with the $50 million Netflix deal for Paradox being considered a “one-off.”
That’s good news for Overlord, then, as the WWII actioner (AKA Cloverfield 4) just completed production late last month ahead of its own release on October 26th. And though The Cloverfield Paradox‘s stealth release blindsided the entire industry soon after Super Bowl LII, the end product simply wasn’t up to snuff, which tells us that Julias Onah’s genre piece would have struggled to leave much of an impression on the global box office.
That $50 million cheque from Netflix will cushion the blow, though it’s fair to say that viewers will be expecting great things from Overlord come October.
Featuring a story that wouldn’t look out of place in a Wolfenstein game, Julius Avery’s supernatural thriller opens on the eve of the famous D-day landings, when a “group of American paratroopers (Russell, Adepo) are dropped behind enemy lines to carry out a mission crucial to the invasion’s success, but as they approach their target, they begin to realize there is more going on in this Nazi-occupied village than a simple military operation. They find themselves fighting against supernatural forces, part of a Nazi experiment.”
It’s a premise that’s certainly worthy of the big-screen treatment, but once the Netflix-shaped safety net has been removed, will the Cloverfield series be able to bounce back? All will be revealed on October 26th.
