How ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ Redefines Movie Franchises

“It felt to me,” Abrams explained, “that if we’re able to authentically connect this movie to this other thing that has been a curious source of interest from a lot of people, it might give a deserving movie the kind of attention that it should get and do so by making public this thing that we were feeling privately, which was ‘Oh my God, this literally feels like the sister movie to Cloverfield.'” 

The question then becomes: What does it mean to “authentically” connect one movie to another? People always say that they want to see something new, but they’re only willing to pay for something old. Where’s the line between swindling people outright and coercing them into doing themselves a favor? 

Our current understanding of franchise filmmaking is best defined by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which every installment is linked together with pulverizing literalness. Those infamous post-credit scenes, once innocent teases meant to string viewers along from one episode to the next, have come to feel like they’re meant to solder together the spaces between stories so that nobody falls into the cracks. 

The ways in which 10 Cloverfield Lane connects to a clever found-footage exercise about obnoxious millennials getting murdered by a rampaging sea monster are authentic; they just happen to be abstract. The two films occupy completely different timelines — not only has director Dan Trachtenberg said so himself, but there’s also no logical explanation for how the incidents depicted in these films could coexist in the same linear universe. Given the framing device around the original film, it would also be an untenable stretch to suggest that the two films are happening concurrently. 

Still, there a number of very real connections that lend credence to Abrams’ claim that the two films could be seen as siblings. Both stories center around young people who are panicking in the face of a romantic crisis: The original’s hero Rob, having recently slept with his long-time best friend, is so petrified of the next step that he’s fleeing the country in favor of a new job in Japan. Lane‘s Michelle, frazzled in the aftermath of a fight with her partner, slams her engagement ring on the table of her apartment and drives off into the maw of middle America. Then, in the span of a single moment, each character’s respective worlds are turned upside down, hideously misshapen to reflect the internal conflicts from which they were trying to flee. Their personal demons sprout into indiscriminate monsters, and the things that were preventing these people from living their lives to the fullest are now actively trying to end them.

Both films are uncommonly immersive. Both films are taunted and terrorized by the unknown. And, yes, both films build to confrontations with genocidal CG colossuses. They’re two different experiences, and yet they each provoke the same nightmares. 

Some people were miffed that the title deprived them of the sequel’s third-act “surprise,” but that’s the thing about Abrams’ vaunted “mystery box”: It’s not about surprise, it’s about anticipation. It simply doesn’t matter that Cloverfield, for all of its financial success and teasing extra-textual material, isn’t exactly Star Wars when it comes to the power of its brand. Audiences weren’t excited because they really wanted to find a particular gift waiting for them under the Christmas tree; they were excited because Christmas was coming nine months early. The follow-up uses familiarity to deliver the unexpected delight that characterized the original. Now, the next time that word appears in the title of a film, you’ll get the same shiver of excitement and start counting down the days.