Sony acquires mysterious Cloverfield-esque project from producer J.J. Abrams

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Do you remember the first time you watched the teaser for CLOVERFIELD? The found footage of that farewell party followed by the sudden and shocking image of the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty lying in the street? It was scary, surreal, and definitely worked to build anticipation for Matt Reeves‘ monster movie. J.J. Abrams‘ trademark brand of mysterious marketing worked wonders for CLOVERFIELD and even his own SUPER 8 and now the producer looks to do it again.

Deadline reports that Sony has purchased a top secret project from Abrams’ Bad Robot that will be the feature directorial debut of Chris Alender. The plot of the film is unknown although the story speculates that it will be similar to CLOVERFIELD but will deal with aliens. Alender wrote a new draft of a script that was previously setup at Paramount but Abrams helped broker the deal at Sony.

Alender is best known for music video work (see the embed below) and helped sell this film by presenting Sony with a sizzle reel, a digital look book and an action-heavy teaser sequence. Sony must have been excited as the project is now being developed. I have always been a fan of Abrams’ mystery box approach, even if it didn’t quite work on the Khan reveal for STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. I loved SUPER 8 and CLOVERFIELD and hope this film builds on the mystery concept.

We will bring you more as this develops.