‘Cloverfield’ Will Be Your New Movie Series That’s Like an Anthology TV Series

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Last spring’s 10 Cloverfield Lane was a tight little psychological thriller wrapped up in a marketable conceit: its connection to the 2008 found-footage monster movie Cloverfield, from shared producer J.J. Abrams, a bond not explicitly clarified until the closing reel. And that was inarguably the weakest element of the movie, so of course that’s the one they’re seizing on and exploiting.

The Wrap is reporting that Abrams’ next effort as producer, the previously announced God Particle, will also connect to the Cloverfield story – or, as it’s put in the article (all together now) its “shared universe.” An “insider familiar with the project” tells The Wrap that Abrams and Paramount are hoping to release a new film in the sorta-series every year. God Particle is set for release on February 24, 2017.

Is this good news? Maybe. Look, God Particle sounds terrific by its cast alone: David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ziyi Zhang, Chris O’Dowd, Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Brühl. And it’s hard to come up with any objections to what amounts to an annually-updated Twilight Zone-esque anthology film series (in fact, this sounds vaguely like what John Carpenter was trying to start with Halloween III), particularly if it ends up being a showcase for on-the-rise actors and filmmakers.

But if they’re tied to the series, that means they all eventually have to work their way around to a connection with it, and as Cloverfield Lane proved, that’s a tricky thing to pull off. Anyhoo, cinematic universes all around, the future of movies is television, huzzah!