How God Particle became the third film in the Cloverfield franchise

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Talk of a sequel to Matt Reeves' CLOVERFIELD persisted for many years after its release, but we were thrown for a loop when 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE was announced as a spiritual sequel to the first film. It seems that the CLOVERFIELD franchise will continue on-wards as sort of a big-screen Twilight Zone series and the writer of the upcoming third film, GOD PARTICLE, recently spoke with Collider to reveal just how it became a part of the CLOVERFIELD franchise.

It was written before 10 Cloverfield Lane and the expanded Cloverfield universe even existed as a thing. It was a spec that I wrote probably a year or so after Shimmer Lake, so it definitely existed as its own science-fiction. And then after years of, you know how scripts kind of hang around—people like them but for whatever reason they decided to make it and then suddenly everything fell into place with J.J. [Abrams], Bad Robot, and Paramount. I don’t know exactly when it became a Cloverfield movie, but I suspect in this current market where it’s just harder and harder to market an original movie of any kind, a science-fiction movie in particular, but I think everyone just knew if it fits—and it does—into that Cloverfield world, it should, and it can only help.

Once the film officially joined the ranks of CLOVERFIELD and 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, Oren Uziel said that it was necessary to perform some rewriting on GOD PARTICLE in order to make sure it fit into the universe, although Uziel said that "as far as specifics, I don’t think there is one specific thread that makes it a Cloverfield movie, I guess." Even if the upcoming movies don't have any revealing connections to the rest of the franchise, making their home under the CLOVERFIELD banner will hopefully provide the opportunity for plenty of quality sci-fi scripts to reach a wider audience.

I think if you can get that off the ground, which they are close, it’s very smart and also great for makers of science-fiction because it relieves you of that burden of like, ‘How are we gonna get people to get off their asses and into the movie theater to see something they’re not sure?’ It’s not a guarantee; the cast is different, we don’t know exactly what we’re getting, but if that stamp of approval of being part of the Cloverfield universe is enough, that’s a huge win. So I’m all for it. When you turn on The Twilight Zone, that’s sort of the way I think about it. I don’t know what this story is going to be, but I know it’s going to be a Twilight Zone story… It’s like an anthology for those kinds of movies, and I think if J.J., if what he’s doing is positioning himself a little bit to be the Rod Serling of J.J.-type science-fiction movies, more power to him.

GOD PARTICLE stars Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O'Dowd, Zhang Ziyi, David Oyelowo, Aksel Hennie, John Ortiz and will center "on a team of astronauts who make a terrifying discovery that challenges everything they know about the fabric of reality, as they desperately fight for survival."

GOD PARTICLE, or whatever it winds up being called, is set for a October 27, 2017 release.