Oh, Matt Reeves. Before Cloverfield came out everyone was calling it J.J. Abrams’ movie, completely ignoring the fact that you, in fact, directed it. And now that Cloverfield has doubled what it cost to make in just two weekends... well, everyone is still calling it J.J. Abrams’ movie, but at least you’re getting two movie deals out of it! Variety reports that not only will there be a Cloverfield sequel, but Reeves will also direct his script called The Invisible Woman. No, it is neither a remake of the H.G. Wells The Invisible Man or the Ralph Ellison Invisible Man, though that would be cool.
Instead, Invisible Man is described as a “Hitchcock-style thriller” about a beauty queen who undertakes a life of crime in order to protect her family. I don’t remember there being any beauty queens in Hitchcock movies, but I’ll go with it. J..J. Abrams will be back as a producer this time, but given that Reeves is the writer and the director now, he probably won’t hog the spotlight like he did with Cloverfield.
And as for that sequel? As we mentioned last week, Reeves has been mulling the idea of a sequel ever since he was shooting the original movie. The sequel likely won’t feature the same characters, but will show the events of the monster’s attack from a completely different angle. I’m all for the idea, but given that Cloverfield experienced a 68% drop in box office receipts the weekend after it opened, I’m not sure how many people will be anxious to revisit the story.
In any case, Reeves is very wisely capitalizing on his newfound reputation as a guy who can make you a ton of money without spending much. If The Invisible Woman turns out to be a hit, we can probably expect a lot more than monster movies from this guy.
