There were warning signs about The Cloverfield Paradox long before it arrived. Like The Cellar, the movie started life as an unrelated script called God Particle, before Abrams and his production company Bad Robot decided to retool it into another spiritual follow-up. The movie was delayed multiple times, with rumors suggesting the studio was worried about it; the lack of photos or trailers seemed to back this up. Then the movie suddenly landed on Netflix, which was another bold marketing stroke - it guaranteed huge initial views before reviews or word of mouth had a chance to kick in.
While The Cloverfield Paradox has its fans, on the whole, it received mediocre reviews and is considered the weakest installment thus far. The ties to the Cloverfield universe also felt sloppy, and the Netflix move where the streaming platform paid Paramount $50 million to secure the exclusive felt like a hustle to save a movie the studio has admitted they felt would struggle with a convention release. The movie let fans down, and there’s already a sense that A Quiet Place a stripped down horror movie with a great premise would have been a better fit for the series.
- This Page: What’s Going On With Cloverfield? / Was A Quiet Place Almost A Cloverfield Movie?
What Is Going On With Cloverfield?
The Cloverfield brand took something of a hit with The Cloverfield Paradox. It just about paid off for both Paramount and Netflix; the former got the budget of the production back, while the latter earned a huge exclusive. But while a robust series can survive the occasional dud, it can take a lot to win back audience confidence. Abrams is pressing ahead with his anthology plans, and the next Cloverfield movie will be Overlord. In keeping with the Mystery Box approach, no stills or footage have been revealed, and the plot is said to concern American soldiers who run across a supernatural Nazi experiment during World War II.
Another Bad Robot production is also rumored to be a Cloverfield sequel. Kolma stars Daisy Ridley, and the plot involves a woman on her deathbed who is given a choice; reunite with her lost love in the afterlife or get sent back in time to the day of the accident that killed him to alter the outcome. Both movies have intriguing hooks, and it will be interesting to see what marketing stunts Abrams attempts this time. All the Cloverfield movies are loosely tied to one another, so the other question is how will a World War II adventure and a time-traveling love story organically link to the first three?
Was A Quiet Place Almost A Cloverfield Movie?
A Quiet Place was a spec script written by Byran Woods and Scott Beck, and takes place in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event where the planet is overrun by creatures who hunt by sound. The story follows a family that struggles to survive in a world where an accidental noise could get them killed. It’s a fantastic concept, and the movie milks every ounce of suspense it can from it. John Krasinski pulled triple duty, playing the lead, co-writing the script and directing, and does a great job with all three.
The movie received strong early word of mouth, but following the release of the first trailer, theories started to emerge linking A Quiet Place to Cloverfield. The evidence was circumstantial; the movie was also produced by Paramount, Krasinski left Paradox to make the movie, and the creatures bare a passing resemblance to those from the Cloverfield movies. Bad Robot wasn’t involved with the project, but that could have been a bluff. When it comes to marketing gimmicks, it would have been a brave move to release A Quiet Place without the Cloverfield name, and have viewers discover it for themselves.
That rumor was dispelled when the movie was released, which has no overt ties to Cloverfield. Writers Beck and Woods have since stated there was a moment they considered making the script a Cloverfield sequel, but once the studio read their spec it was decided to keep it an original concept. Producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller also laughed off the rumor, revealing the idea of making it a Cloverfield sequel was never once discussed during production.
That said, neither The Celler nor God Particle started life as Cloverfield movies either, so if the script had landed on Abrams desk first, who knows what could have happened. Abrams vision for the anthology is to make movies with strong hooks and unite them under one umbrella, and A Quiet Place has a few ingredients that made it a natural candidate. Give how Paradox turned out, perhaps it would have been the better choice.
The Cloverfield Paradox Ruined Cloverfield
The Cloverfield Paradox has a killer idea; scientists test a particle accelerator in space and realize the Earth has gone missing after it misfires. Unfortunately, the movie has a lot of flaws holding it back. It’s never tense or scary, the characters aren’t engaging and it feels like the movie is making up the rules as it goes along Chris O’Dowd’s sentient arm being a good example. The argument has been made that the finale of 10 Cloverfield Lane is the weakest part since it feels disconnected from the rest of the narrative. True or not for Lane, the argument definitely holds true with Paradox, with the ties to past Cloverfield movies feeling tacked on at best.
The appearance of the original Clover monster in the final scene is the laziest possible throwback, it sort of explains (but not really) the debris that falls into the ocean in the first movie and the accelerator is used as a device to bind the movies together. None of it feels well thought out, which undermines the idea there’s a binding philosophy to the series. The idea of alternate dimensions can now be used to explain away unanswered questions or inconsistencies, and just about any project can now be turned into a Cloverfield movie using the separate timeline defense.
While The Cloverfield Paradox isn’t terrible, it taints the name of the series. From the sneakiness of its release to its limp explanation of the weirdness found in the franchise, it spoiled the sense that Cloverfield was event cinema. That could change of course if Overlord or Kolma win back the trust of viewers, but Paradox is a definite misstep.
A Quiet Place Is More Cloverfield Than Paradox
In some ways, the idea of a Cloverfield anthology feels inspired by John Carpenter’s original plans for the Halloween series in the early 1980’s. After Halloween II killed off Michael Myers, Carpenter tried to steer the series into an anthology, with each movie being a separate tale linked by the season. Of course, audiences were furious when they paid to see Halloween III: Season Of The Witch and Michael was nowhere to be found. The series reverted back to formula for every subsequent entry, but while it was hated at the time, Season Of The Witch is considered one of the best sequels precisely because it dared to experiment under the franchise banner.
Abrams has seemingly embraced that failed model as a way to draw viewers to original genre stories that can be sold under a brand name. A feature of the first two Cloverfield movies included a simple but unique concept, a strong directorial vision (Matt Reeves, Dan Trachtenberg) and grounding genre material with strong characters and performances. The Cloverfield Paradox failed on all those fronts; it doesn’t do anything original with the core concept, it feels like a generic remake of Event Horizon and while it has some good performances, the drama is never engaging.
A Quiet Place feels much more like a Cloverfield movie than Paradox ever does. It’s a got the idea, the great performances and Krasinski directs the hell out of it; even the creatures feel like they belong in the Cloverfield world. The writers have since said they’re glad the movie wasn’t rolled under the franchise umbrella and was allowed to be its own thing, and its success shows there’s a place for horror movies told with heart and intelligence.
This isn’t to say A Quiet Place needs the Cloverfield franchise. It more than stands on its own. But Cloverfield should be enviously looking what John Krasinski accomplished. If A Quiet Place had become a Cloverfield movie, it would have only enhanced the reputation of Abrams’ pet franchise. Hopefully, moving forward, the producers will be seeking scripts of a similar quality.
More: Is A Quiet Place Too Scary For A PG-13?
- Overlord Release Date: 2018-11-09
