Paramount has hired BAFTA-winning Under the Shadow and I Came By director Babak Anvari to helm the next movie in the Cloverfield franchise.
Deadline’s sources report that Anvari will direct from a script written by Joe Barton (HBO Max’s Gotham City Police Department), but there are no additional details regarding how this will link to the original, or whether in fact it is the direct sequel to Matt Reeves’ 2008 found-footage blockbuster that the writer was rumoured to be working on last year.
Released in 2008, Cloverfield was a found footage Kaiju film which followed a group of friends in New York City as it came under attack from an alien monster. The film was directed by Matt Reeves with with J.J. Abrams producing through Bad Robot. Both return as producers for this new movie.
This announcement marks a change in tactic for Paramount, who since the original’s almost $180 million worldwide gross have used the Cloverfield brand as a way of salvaging movies that may-or-may-not have been filmed as a part of this cinematic universe. Both the excellent 10 Cloverfield Lane and the not-so-excellent The Cloverfield Paradox were filmed under different titles and only very loosely linked to the original.
Babak Anvari won his BAFTA for Outstanding Debut Filmmaker for his superb horror Under the Shadow, and his Hugh Bonneville starring Hitchcockian thriller I Came By has been a hit on Netflix.
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