J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company have hatched a pretty clever plan to unleash some original sci-fi movies on the world. Last year, they under-the-radar released a sort-of-sequel toCloverfieldby the name of10 Cloverfield Lane. The movie was a big success, so the “Cloververse” is expanding. This year will see the release ofCloverfield 3, which originally started out as a sci-fi movie calledGod Particle. Now, screenwriter Oren Uziel has explained how his original movie became the next movie in theCloverfield movie universe.
Oren Uziel recently spoke withColliderabout his upcoming Netflix movieShimmer Lake. During the course of the conversation, he was asked aboutGod Particleand when it actually becameCloverfield 3. It turns out, his movie was written long before the idea of thisCloverfielduniverse even existed. Here’s what he had to say about it.
“It was written before 10 Cloverfield Lane and theexpanded Cloverfield universeeven existed as a thing. It was a spec that I wrote probably a year or so after Shimmer Lake, so it definitely existed as its own science-fiction. And then after years of, you know how scripts kind of hang around, people like them but for whatever reason they decided to make it and then suddenly everything fell into place with J.J. [Abrams], Bad Robot, and Paramount. I don’t know exactly when it became a Cloverfield movie, but I suspect in this current market where it’s just harder and harder to market an original movie of any kind, a science-fiction movie in particular, but I think everyone just knew if it fits, and it does, into that Cloverfield world, it should, and it can only help.”
Getting people to go to a movie, unless you’re Disney, is very difficult these days. Especially when it comes to original properties. So the idea of putting these original sci-fi movies within the framework of thisCloverfielduniverse will really help.10 Cloverfield Lanemade more than $100 million at the box office last year, and there is almost no way that would have happened were it not connected, at least in name, to the originalCloverfield. He also talked a little bit about the process of rewritingGod Particleto turn it intoCloverfield 3, which was actually a bit of an on-the-fly thing.
“We rewrote during production, but I’m not sure what it means to be part of the expanded Cloverfield universe, other than knowing what kind of quality and feel you’re gonna get from something that’s coming out of Bad Robot andJ.J. AbramsIt just sort of helps to give an understanding of like, ‘Okay I understand what type of movie this is gonna be.’ As far as specifics, I don’t think there is one specific thread that makes it a Cloverfield movie, I guess.”
Much like10 Cloverfield Lane, Bad Robot and J.J. Abrams are being pretty secretive about the currently untitledCloverfieldmovie, but we do know that the movie will involve astronauts in space who make a shocking discovery. Oren Uziel couldn’t say much about it, but he did explain that his movie favors character over obstacles. Here’s how he explains it.
“I guess for me sometimes those movies tend to be more concerned with whatever the obstacle is, and I’m more concerned with the characters' relationships to each other and that obstacle I guess. So to me, when you say it’s a contained astronaut movie, I’m just curious what those astronauts are going through and what they’re experiencing and what the character story is, and what specifically the threat is often less of a concern to me.”
In addition to the movie formerly known asGod Particle, it is rumored that Paramount’s war movieOverlordis also going to be part of theCloverfielduniverse. It stands to reason that as long as these low-budget sci-fi movies with a loose connection to one another are making money, Bad Robot will keep making them. The untitledCloverfieldmovie is currently set for release onOctober 27, 2017.
