Cloverfield: Matt Reeves says “never say never” about returning to direct a sequel to the original monster movie

Last Updated on January 23, 2023

The Cloverfield series was ambitious from the start. When the first teaser trailer made an unannounced premiere with Michael Bay’sTransformers back in 2007, it started buzz with mysterious, ominous found footage of an unseen force attacking New York City. It showed the head of the Statue of Liberty getting thrown onto a city street and capped off with only a date and no title. Since the release, the J.J. Abrams-produced movie would eventually turn into an anthology, with the word “Cloverfield” being the only connecting tissue.

Director Matt Reeves has since gone on to other franchises, including last year’s The Batman. ComicBook.com recently brought up the notion of returning to direct an entry continuing the story of the monster attack from the first film. Reeves answers, “I have no idea. I’m super excited about us doing more, and I can’t give you information about that, of course, because that’s the way Cloverfield works. To be honest with you, you never know what you’re going to do. Even though my work is all genre work, I have to feel something personal about it. Cloverfield is very much about my anxieties.”

Reeves continues, “That was the process that drew me in, that’s what taught me how to shoot it, how to talk to the actors about what it was, because it was like trying to ground it from that perspective and make something crazy, fantastical, and genre, also feel real…I think if another story were to present itself where I was like, ‘Gosh I have to tell that story.’ It’s not impossible. I wouldn’t say that’s a for sure thing, but I would never say never.”

Although a direct sequel is already in the works with a script from Joe Barton, Babak Anvari of Under the Shadow will actually be sitting in the director’s chair for this one. The movie is said to be taking place after the events of the first movie, although this time, it will be told in traditional movie narrative format and not in the first-person, found footage point-of-view. As per usual, the details of the movie’s development are surrounded in secrecy. Both follow-ups, 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Cloverfield Paradox made equally surprising unannounced appearances in the public eye and this one is sure to also come out of nowhere. It’s entirely possible it could release either a trailer or the full-fledged feature out of the blue, with The Cloverfield Paradox infamously dropping on Netflix unannounced after the Super Bowl a few years ago.