Cloverfield

10 Cloverfield Lane was the surprise breakout sci-fi of last year, surprising audiences who were underwhelmed by its found-footage predecessor. While the Cloverfield series is already developing a third installment disconnected (maybe) from 10 Cloverfield Lane, Mary Elizabeth Winstead says she’s totally down to bring her character back.

At the end of October, a report (unsurprisingly) revealed what many fans had speculated: Bad Robot’s upcoming sci-fi thriller God Particle is actually the next installment in the Cloverfield series. That piece of news was largely unacknowledged by the studio until now, as a cute little release date change has seemingly confirmed that Julius Onah’s film is indeed part of the Cloverfield universe.

If anyone can keep a secret in Hollywood, it’s J.J. Abrams. His Bad Robot-produced Cloverfield was promoted with a sneaky viral marketing campaign in late 2007, and earlier this year the second film in the franchise remained a complete mystery until weeks before its release. Last week we learned the third Cloverfield film will reportedly be the Abrams-produced God Particle, but that film is so top secret that its lead actress had, and still has no idea about its connection to the Cloverfield universe.

J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield universe is quickly becoming one of the more interesting cinematic universes. Instead of stringing together a series of connected sequels and spinoffs à la the Marvel and DC cinematic universes, the 2008 found footage thriller has spawned something a little more ambiguous. This year saw the surprise release of Bad Robot’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was less a sequel to the 2008 movie and more of a blood relative. And now we finally have confirmation of what the third film in the Clover-verse will be.

You probably haven’t heard of ‘Dan Trachtenberg’ unless you’ve seen his sci-fi short, ‘Portal: No Escape,’ or followed news about him directing the mysterious Bad Robot project ‘Valencia.’ As we all learned two months ago, ‘Valencia’ was actually the codename for ‘10 Cloverfield Lane,’ a secret film related to the 2008 monster movie’ Cloverfield.’

How big of a secret was the J.J. Abrams produced ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’? So big that star Mary Elizabeth Winstead didn’t even know the movie’s title until an hour before the rest of world did. Up until the trailer for the movie surprised audiences in front of Michael Bay’s ‘13 Hours’ two months ago, no one outside of the cast and crew knew the upcoming thriller was related to 2008's ‘Cloverfield.’

‘10 Cloverfield Lane’ is as sneaky as movies come. No one had any idea the ‘Cloverfield’ universe was being continued until a trailer for the mysterious movie appeared in front of Michael Bay’s ‘13 Hours’ on January 14, a mere two months before its release this Friday. Only scant details about the movie have been revealed in trailers, photos and through fans decoding its vast viral marketing, reminiscent to the unveiling of ‘Cloverfield’ nine years ago. But now that we’ve finally seen the new movie, we can tell you just how it is, and mostly isn’t, related to Matt Reeves’ 2008 monster movie. If you want to remain completely surprised, check out our spoiler-free review. Otherwise, continue into very spoilery territory where we will ruin some big plot twists. You’ve been warned!

Are you ready for the CCU (the Cloverfield Cinematic Universe)? Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams are doubling down on their upcoming sequel/spinoff 10 Cloverfield Lane with plans to turn the Cloverfield universe into a legitimate anthology of films and Abrams says he already knows what the next movie will be.