Trailer For J.J. Abrams ‘Cloverfield’ Sequel Comes Out Of Nowhere – Being Released When?

JJ Abrams has had his hands full with Star Wars: The Force Awakens for years now, and as if that wasn’t enough, there’s always Star Trek Beyond too. Some may seem to forget about the promised and hinted at sequel to 2008’s Cloverfield that has been dead as far as information on it. Then all of a sudden, a trailer has been released for 10 Cloverfield Lane and no-one had any clue it was even coming.

It was in 2014 that there was the reveal of Dan Trachtenberg stepping in to direct a film called Valencia aka The Cellar. All that was really known about the film is that it would be a post-apocalyptic thriller and fall under the Bad Robot/Paramount banner.

Oh yeah, JJ Abrams was going to produce it as well. Sure, he’s been busy, but he was even busier fooling everyone, per Collider.

It appears now as if Valencia or The Cellar is actually 10 Cloverfield Lane and it’s the sequel to his 2008 surprise hit. By the way, there is also a trailer that has now landed online for it too.

With all of this going on, Collider wondered what exactly was up since there was no real word of this from the studio. They reached out to Paramount and got a solid statement from none other than the man himself – JJ Abrams.

“The idea came up a long time ago during production. We wanted to make it a blood relative of Cloverfield. The idea was developed over time. We wanted to hold back the title for as long as possible.”

As if that isn’t just freakish enough, SlashFilm found out that an official trailer is set to be out at some point tonight, but for now, there is the videotaped copy above.

The trailer was attached to Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soliders of Benghazi, and it shocked a lot of movie-goers. No-one really had a single clue that the trailer would be attached to the film, was coming anytime soon, or that 10 Cloverfield Lane was even still happening.

Just imagine this is a shot at creating Bad Robot’s anthology banner. “If it says Cloverfield on it, you can expect twists and wild ideas.”

— DrewAtHitFix (@DrewAtHitFix) January 15, 2016

Abrams has said before that the sequel to Clovefield would be a “blood relative” to the first film. That may mean it isn’t a straight-up sequel, but it is going to be connect to the 2008 movie. Obviously, this film is shot in a much different style and with traditional methods.

Cloverfield was filmed with handheld cameras and had the appearance and idea of “found footage” of the horrible things that occurred.

Now, here’s something that is even stranger for everyone to try and take in. 10 Cloverfield Lane is hitting theaters on March 11.

That’s right. The movie is actually coming to theaters in less than two months.

What else is known about the sequel is that a woman wakes up in a cellar (hence the old title) where a stranger has been keeping her hostage. The stranger is a character played by John Goodman, and that’s really all she knows about what is happening.

Winstead elaborated on the plot for as much as she could give forth.

“He tells me that basically the world is over outside because there’s been a nuclear fall-out. It does have similarity to Faults, in some ways, because you don’t know who’s telling the truth or who to believe. There’s a lot of, who’s manipulating who, and all of that. Tonally, it’s very different, but it has some of those same themes.”

The Cloverfield sequel, or now 10 Cloverfield Lane as it is called, stars John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr., and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Believe it or not, it really is set to hit theaters on March 11, 2016, and that’s a lot sooner than anyone ever thought. JJ Abrams sure knows how to entertain and surprise his audiences.

[Image via IMPAwards]