The Cloverfield Paradox

2018 Film by Julius Onah

Overview

The Cloverfield Paradox is a 2018 American science fiction horror film directed by Julius Onah and written by Oren Uziel , from a story by Uziel and Doug Jung . The film is produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber under the Bad Robot banner. It is the third installment in the Cloverfield franchise, following Cloverfield (2008) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016). The film stars an ensemble cast including Gugu Mbatha-Raw , Elizabeth Debicki , Aksel Hennie , Daniel Brühl , Chris O’Dowd , John Ortiz , David Oyelowo , and Zhang Ziyi .

Plot Summary

In the year 2028, Earth is grappling with a severe energy crisis . To combat this, worldwide agencies collaborate to test the Shepard particle accelerator aboard the Cloverfield space station , which promises to provide infinite energy. The crew consists of British engineer Ava Hamilton, German physicist Ernst Schmidt, Brazilian medical doctor Monk Acosta, American commander Kiel, Russian engineer Volkov, Irish engineer Mundy, and Chinese engineer Tam.

Conspiracy theorists, including Mark Stambler, fear that the accelerator will create the “Cloverfield Paradox,” potentially opening portals to parallel universes and allowing unknown threats to invade Earth. After two years of unsuccessful attempts, the crew finally achieves a stable beam. However, the accelerator overloads, causing a power surge that results in Earth’s disappearance and the loss of the station’s gyroscope , which is crucial for navigation.

As the crew works on repairs, they discover and rescue a woman named Mina Jensen, who is fused with wires inside a wall. Volkov’s eyeballs begin moving independently, and he starts conversing with his reflection. He later threatens the crew with a gun but suddenly convulses and dies as the station’s worm colony bursts out of him. Jensen warns Hamilton not to trust Schmidt, whom she claims is a spy sent by the German government to keep the Shepard shut down.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Hamilton’s husband Michael, who has been struggling with their relationship since the death of their children in a fire, witnesses the silhouette of a giant monster ravaging the city. He helps a young girl, Molly, and takes her to an underground shelter to tend to her wounds.

Back on the station, Mundy’s arm is pulled into a wall and severed. The crew finds the arm roaming independently and realizes it is trying to write something. The arm instructs them to “cut Volkov open.” They comply and find the missing gyroscope inside his corpse. The crew finally locates Earth and restores communications, but the transmissions indicate that the station was destroyed and fell to Earth two days prior. They deduce that the accelerator has activated the “Cloverfield Paradox” and transported the station to a parallel universe where Jensen has replaced Tam as the station’s engineer.

The crew believes they can return to their own universe by reactivating the Shepard. Tam gets trapped in a chamber that floods with water and then breaches, freezing her to death. Hamilton decides to return to the parallel universe with Jensen to prevent her children’s death. As they prepare, a magnetic field destabilizes the Shepard, causing an explosion that kills Mundy. When the station begins to tear apart, Kiel sacrifices himself to reactivate the Shepard, leaving Hamilton in charge.

Hamilton prepares to leave with Jensen, but Jensen knocks her out and wounds Schmidt with Volkov’s gun. Jensen also kills Acosta and insists that the station must stay in her universe to keep the accelerator there. Hamilton regains consciousness and uses the gun to shoot out a window, ejecting Jensen into space. Hamilton records a message to her alternate self as she and Schmidt reverse the shift to finally make the Shepard work. After reporting in, both eject themselves in a reentry capsule towards their universe’s Earth.

In light of the ongoing situation, Michael learns of the Cloverfield station’s reappearance but lambasts Hamilton’s return to Earth. As the capsule re-enters the atmosphere, a giant monster bursts through the clouds and lets out a huge roar.

Cast

• Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ava Hamilton, the British communications officer aboard Cloverfield station and Michael’s wife
• David Oyelowo as Kiel, the American commander of the station
• Daniel Brühl as Ernst Schmidt, a German physicist
• John Ortiz as Monk Acosta, a Brazilian medical doctor
• Chris O’Dowd as Mundy, an Irish engineer
• Aksel Hennie as Volkov, a Russian engineer
• Zhang Ziyi as Tam, a Chinese engineer
• Elizabeth Debicki as Mina Jensen, an Australian engineer from one of the alternate timelines
• Roger Davies as Michael Hamilton, Ava’s husband
• Clover Nee as Molly Pontanius, a young girl rescued by Michael

Additionally, Donal Logue cameos as Mark Stambler, a conspiracy theorist discussing the “Cloverfield Paradox,” and possible relative of Howard Stambler, portrayed by John Goodman in 10 Cloverfield Lane. Suzanne Cryer , who appeared as Leslie in 10 Cloverfield Lane, also appears in a brief cameo role as a newscaster who interviews Stambler. Simon Pegg and Greg Grunberg , both of whom have frequently worked with Abrams on other films and television series, provide vocal cameos as Radio Voice and Joe, respectively. Oyelowo and Logue previously portrayed Kiel and Stambler in the film’s ARG campaign.

Production

Pre-production

The film was announced in November 2012 under the title God Particle, based on a script by Oren Uziel and to be directed by Julius Onah . With J.J. Abrams ’ Bad Robot as the production studio, it was set to be released under Paramount’s Insurge Pictures label, limiting the film’s budget to $5–10 million. At this stage, the film was established to take place on a space station in Earth’s orbit and a resulting incident that causes the crew to find Earth has gone missing. Uziel said that his script had been a spec script he wrote about one year after finishing up a similar spec script for Shimmer Lake (2017). The pick-up of the film occurred around the same time that Paramount and Bad Robot bought the rights to the spec script The Cellar by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, which ultimately was reworked during production to become 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), adding in elements to tie that script to Cloverfield (2008); however, when Uziel wrote his screenplay for God Particle, it had not been attached to the Cloverfield franchise. When Bad Robot acquired the script, Abrams had already put some thought into how it could fit into Cloverfield but had not come up with a way prior to filming. Abrams liked that with the script, “how something in the future could be an origin for something in the past” to establish origin stories for the other Cloverfield works. Abrams said that the script had “the DNA” that made it a potential Cloverfield film, and was looking for it to be a spiritual sequel to the original.

In March 2015, Paramount decided to close the InSurge label; The Cellar had been moved under the main Paramount label, but God Particle’s fate was unclear. By February 2016, Paramount confirmed it would release the film under its own label, with a planned February 2017 release date.

Casting

In March 2016, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Oyelowo were confirmed to be cast in the film. In April, Variety reported that John Krasinski was in early talks to join the film to play one of the astronauts, but had a possible conflict due to a commitment with a television series . In May, Elizabeth Debicki , Daniel Brühl , Chris O’Dowd , Zhang Ziyi , John Ortiz , and Aksel Hennie were announced as members of the cast.

Filming

The film was shot in Los Angeles, California, where it received tax credits under the state’s film incentive program. While filming in Los Angeles, the project was shot under the titles of God Particle and Clean Pass. Filming began on June 10, 2016, and wrapped on September 23, 2016. Dan Mindel was the cinematographer on the film. According to Uziel, it was during production that he came to learn that the film was being connected to Cloverfield, requiring him to rewrite a few scenes for additional shooting. Uziel speculated that the decision to connect to Cloverfield was due to the difficulty in marketing a stand-alone science-fiction film at the time, and felt the connection between the films was more of an anthology series similar to The Twilight Zone , with each movie dealing with how people with complex relations deal with an other-worldly dilemma. The scenes set on Earth were added during production only after they found test audiences wanted to know what was happening on Earth during events on the space station. The final shot of the monster, similar to the creature Clover seen in the first Cloverfield movie, was a shot that the production team came to recognize as a further way to link the films. Among some of the film’s Easter eggs includes a figurine of a “Slusho!” mascot aboard the station; the drink brand had been featured in Cloverfield’s viral marketing.

Post-production

The visual effects were provided by Atomic Fiction and supervised by Ryan Tudhope, Russell Earl , Jason Snell , Stefano Trivelli, and Pauline Duvall with the help of Industrial Light & Magic and Base FX .

Music

Main article: The Cloverfield Paradox (soundtrack)

Release

Shortly after filming in October 2016, The Wrap learned from insiders of the connection of God Particle to Cloverfield, though neither Paramount nor Bad Robot commented on this discovery. However, by December 2016, Paramount affirmed the film’s connection; the title God Particle had been dropped in favor of listing the film as “2017 Cloverfield movie.”

Alongside the renaming, Paramount reslotted the film’s release from February 2017 to October 2017, to give more time for post-production. The film suffered two additional delays. In July 2017, it was announced the release had been delayed another three months to February 2018. In January 2018, the release was moved for a third time, to April 20, 2018. The reason for these latter delays was not given.

In mid-January 2018, the Cloverfield alternative reality game (ARG), which had been used for both of the previous films, was relaunched, and provided some hints how this film would be tied to the other two.

In late January 2018, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Netflix was interested in picking up the film from Paramount, following a similar deal the streaming service had worked out for the film Annihilation . According to the Reporter, Paramount’s chairman Jim Gianopulos felt the film’s budget (which had ballooned to over $40 million from an initial $5 million) was too large for the film to be profitable with a traditional theatrical release and that it still needed work done, and “while Abrams expressed an intent to get down to business in post-production, it was too little, too late.” In March 2018, Paramount’s COO Andrew Gumpert affirmed that Paramount, after reviewing the finished film with Abrams, had doubted the commercial viability of a theatrical release, and that “there was an ability for us to be fiscally prudent and monetize” by selling the rights to Netflix, exposing the film to a much larger audience. Following the film’s release, The Hollywood Reporter stated that Netflix paid more than $50 million for the rights, with negotiations starting in late December 2017 and completed by mid-January 2018; this offer made the film immediately profitable to Paramount. The studio retains China and home entertainment release rights. According to insiders speaking to The Wrap, Paramount executives believed handing off the release to Netflix was an easy way to get instant return on the film, and the surprise reveal and release is a good way to keep in line with the mystique of the franchise. This said, they clarified that they still have intentions of having theatrical releases for future films in the series.

Around this time, speculation of the film being named Cloverfield Station arose, though this was not confirmed by Paramount. Further speculation circulated in Hollywood sources that work on the film was actually complete and that its first trailer would be revealed soon; 10 Cloverfield Lane had a similar surprise trailer.

The events of the preceding month culminated on February 4, 2018, where, during a surprise advertisement during Super Bowl LII, Netflix announced it had acquired the premiere rights for the film, now titled The Cloverfield Paradox, which would be available on the service immediately after the game. The actors themselves were not aware of this arrangement until the day of the Super Bowl and were told of the title, the advertisement, and the release that day during a morning conference call.

Home Media

On November 28, 2018, Paramount announced that the film would be receiving a DVD and Blu-ray release on February 5, 2019.

Reception

Critical Response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 22% of 158 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The website’s consensus reads: “Brilliant casting is overshadowed by a muddled mix of genres and storylines that scratch more heads than sci-fi itches in The Cloverfield Paradox.” Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 37 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable” reviews.

John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a “trainwreck of a sci-fi flick bent on extending a franchise that should have died a peaceful death almost exactly one decade ago.” Writing for Deadline Hollywood , Dino-Ray Ramos said, “The Super Bowl trailer for Paradox gave the impression the movie would reveal the origin of the monster that appeared in the 2008 movie and was later on hinted at in the critically acclaimed 2016 follow-up — but it barely did that. Instead, it stalls the franchise as a pastiche of sci-fi cinema veiled in clever marketing.”

Cinemablend gave it a positive review, granting it 4 of 5 stars; the review noted that the ensemble cast “helps keep the wheels in motion, with a perpetual motion that never lets up,” and that Ava’s storyline provides a “human anchor” for the film’s narrative.

Audience Viewership

While the film received negative reviews, the marketing approach of announcing the film during the Super Bowl and premiering it hours later was seen as a novel move by Netflix. IGN noted that this strategy could only work for a film in an established franchise, whereas most new films would need a significant marketing period to draw in viewers. Even knowing that the film might be a critical flop, Netflix would have been able to grab attention due to hype from the Super Bowl, and attention that the Cloverfield series had already had.

According to Nielsen ratings based on subscription video on demand, nearly 785,000 viewers watched The Cloverfield Paradox on the night of Super Bowl LII; within three days, over 2.8 million had watched it, and 5 million after a week. These ratings were not as strong as Netflix’s Bright , released 6 weeks earlier, which had 11 million viewers within 3 days. The film did not significantly draw viewers from the episode of This is Us on NBC after the Super Bowl game, which had been extensively marketed ahead of the night, and which drew 27 million that evening.

Future

In February 2018, Abrams acknowledged potential for character crossovers in future films. The producer confirmed plans for an eventual team-up with Ava and Mary Elizabeth Winstead ’s Michelle from 10 Cloverfield Lane. In June 2018, Abrams revealed a fourth film that would serve as a “true” and “dedicated” sequel to Cloverfield. In January 2021, Joe Barton was hired as screenwriter, while Abrams will co-produce the film with Hannah Minghella. The project will be a joint-venture production between Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures and will receive a theatrical release. In January 2023, Matt Reeves stated that the ongoing developments won’t be talked about prior to future project releases, with intent for it to “always [be] surprising” similar to the previous installments.

See Also

• List of films featuring space stations
• Cloverfield (film)