"Something's coming," John Goodman's voice warns at the end of the 10 Cloverfield Lane Super Bowl trailer that aired on Sunday evening. What even J.J. Abrams fanatics hadn't seen coming was this movie, until the surprise theatrical trailer dropped before the Michael Bay action flick 13 Hours. 10 Cloverfield Lane looks like a claustrophobic follow-up to the director's found footage monster movie from 2008. Goodman claims to be protecting characters played by John Gallagher Jr. and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, but who is he, and how can any of them really be safe? Between Star Wars and Star Trek, how did J.J. Abrams even have time to produce and resurrect an underrated sci-fi thriller like Cloverfield? HAnd how did it stay a secret? And, most importantly, what is 10 Cloverfield Lane about?
The film was written and developed under the title The Cellar, masking any connection to the Godzilla homage that is Cloverfield. Tricky, too, is that the cast is all new. (Anyway, most of the characters in the original Cloverfield are, well... dead.) Little information has been offered so far by either Abrams or the cast as to the plot of the movie. Thankfully, this TV spot features some new footage that's not in the theatrical trailer, and therefore some new clues. Goodman clearly plays a person who'd been planning for some kind of apocalypse, monster-related or not. Winstead's character doesn't know him, and obviously thinks she woke up in the clutches of some kind of doomsday zealot. But the danger that faces her outside of his bunker is far greater than the intense survivalist poses.
Zealot or not, Goodman's character is right. Something is outside. Is it the same creature that terrorized the young New Yorkers in the 2008 film? Or just a relative? I also wonder when this film is set. Cloverfield didn't exactly have a hopeful ending. The credits rolled as the last two surviving 20somethings were (presumably) killed off screen. Did the military eventually bring the creature down? If 10 Cloverfield Lane takes place in the present day, it's been eight years since the massacre. Shouldn't everyone be living in fear like Goodman's character is? Or has the government convinced them that they're safe?
The original Cloverfield made use of a multi-platform viral campaign, linking the creature's gestation through a cryptic web puzzle to the company that produces Slusho, a sugary drink that's an Easter Egg in many Abrams's properties. I hope that this trailer kicks off a new social media countdown to 10 Cloverfield Lane that's just as absorbing. (Though, unlike the 2008 version, it probably won't include making specialized Myspace profiles for each character. Tinder, maybe.) Watch the new 10 Cloverfield Lane TV spot below, and see if you can spot any other connections to its predecessor.
Image: Paramount Pictures; Giphy
