As audiences will find out this weekend, director Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane doesn’t really have all that much to do with its similarly-titled 2008 sister film, Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield. Instead, it’s been noted that the shared titular word is actually more of a Twilight Zone-esque link between projects, with the folks at Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures establishing a new franchise through which filmmakers can tell original stories. But is the idea of the two films eventually linking up something that’s totally off the table? Not according to Trachtenberg.
Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of hoping on the phone with Dan Trachtenberg to talk about the ins and outs of 10 Cloverfield Lane, and I took the opportunity to ask the filmmaker about his thoughts on linking his film and 2008’s Cloverfield. He confirmed that they are separate entities for now, but that the there is a possible future where the two desperate narratives eventually collide. Said Trachtenberg,
Who knows what’s in store in the future, and what kind of things could be further connected - but certainly [10 Cloverfield Lane] does take place in a different timeline. But there are definitely connections that one could make as well.
In case this quote is just a tad bit confusing, what Dan Trachtenberg is talking about here is the potential to inject the Cloverfield franchise with a bit of multiverse theory. This is the idea that there is actually an infinite number of different universes – some incredibly similar to our own and some entirely different – and that because of their simultaneous co-existence, there is the possibility that timeline crossover or travel between timelines could happen. So while the events that we see unfold in both 10 Cloverfield Lane and Cloverfield happen in two distinct worlds, it’s possible that some sci-fi fun could eventually bring the two together.
It shouldn’t really come as a huge surprise that 10 Cloverfield Lane exists separately from the original Cloverfield at this time, as it wasn’t until the last few months that the two movies even had a titular connection. When the project was first starting development at Bad Robot, it was going under the name The Cellar - and it wasn’t until promotion of the movie began in January 2016 that the studios decided to give it a Cloverfield title. Of course, most film-goers aren’t going to know this going into the theater, so it will be interesting to see how its perceived in that regard.
10 Cloverfield Lane is in theaters this weekend, and you’ll be doing yourself quite the disservice if you don’t catch it. Go check out the film in the next few days, and stay tuned here on Cinema Blend for more from our interview with Dan Trachtenberg!
