It’s been a pretty extraordinary fortnight for Paramount and Bad Robot’s Cloverfield franchise.
Coming out of Super Bowl LII, both studios dropped The Cloverfield Paradox (AKA God Particle) via Netflix, completely redefining the parameters of digital distribution in one fell swoop.
As the title suggests, it’s the third entry in Bad Robot’s sci-fi series, one that’s inexplicably tied to both the original Cloverfield and Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane. Sadly, Paradox was just that, a glitzy paradox of old genre tropes and muddled storytelling that failed to channel the terror of its monstrous ancestors.
But there’s clearly still a future for Cloverfield at Paramount, with reports asserting that the lucrative Netflix deal was merely a one-off, and future installments (see: Overlord) will likely receive a theatrical release. That’s just as well, too, as there’s seemingly a fifth movie in development with Daisy Ridley.
Back in 2016, The Last Jedi actress signed on for Kolma, a supernatural drama from J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production banner. That’s the same duo behind all other installments in the Cloverfield franchise, so it’s easy to see why some online theorists have put two and two together.
It is a stretch, of course, as Kolma (rough translation: All I’ve Got) is actually a big-screen remake of the eponymous 2003 Israeli TV movie, which centers on a man who “died in a car accident 50 years ago who waits on the other side for his former girlfriend who survived. When the woman dies, she’s given the choice of returning to the day of the accident to live again or being reunited with her love.”
There are elements of the supernatural peppered throughout Kolma though, and on paper, it would certainly make for a nice tonic to the action-packed Overlord (AKA Cloverfield 4), which ships Wyatt Russell and Jovan Adepo off to the frontlines of World War II on October 26th. More on the Cloververse as it comes in.