The Cloverfield Paradox (formerly The God Particle)

hatrickpatrick

Remember there were a lot of Boardsies who got into the clue hunting marketing campaigns for Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, so a heads up that there's another one coming out in April (formerly working title "God Particle" but now referred to simply as "Untitled Cloverfield Movie" by Paramount).

The first two viral websites are:

www.tagruato.jp - same as for the first two movies, except now the site appears to have been "hacked" and had all its content replaced with cryptic error messages and hash ciphers

www.04182028.com - a strange, scrambled video with some faces hidden in various frames and a corrupted audio track

This is basically the entrance to the rabbit hole, you can keep up with ongoing discoveries and clue hunting on our Reddit hub at www.reddit.com/r/Cloververse

Already psyched for this! There are some indications that unlike 10 Cloverfield Lane which had a tangential connection to the first movie, this one might feature a story directly connected to the original monster attack. Have a read of the stickies at the subreddit if you want to get immersed in this.

kerplun k

Recent rumors about this do not sound good. Release date has shifted a few times. I’ve heard strong rumors that it still needs a lot of post production work and The God Particle title and plot have been dropped altogether.

J.J was supposed to step in and try and fix it, but his unexpected commitment to Star Wars left him unavailable. The budget has already spiraled, and is currently sitting at about 40m, to put that in perspective, 10CL cost 15m. Now it’s in a position where Paramount don’t have the confidence to spend more money to promote and distribute it, and instead are looking at the option of flogging the current version to Netflix.

It’s a shame, because the original God Particle idea sounded fun, and slotted right into the CloverVerse anthology set of films and something I definitely would have liked to watch in the cinema.

I hope that, if it goes down the Netflix route, they spend the time and money to deliver something that’s not a complete mess and has a coherent and complete story.

From a marketing perspective, I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of dropping the connection of this to CloverVerse and let it be its own thing, then, in a few years, let J.J and Co. redo the God Particle idea and attach the new film to the Cloverfield Anthology.

ps3lover

This hits Netflix after the Super Bowl! What the Christ? Feels like a real dump job!

Slydice

Agent Coulson

Love me some Gugu.

yerwanthere123

It's going on Netflix? Christ.

Bacchus

Just woke up with a notification from Netflix that this is available. WTF!

pixelburp

It was bound to happen really wasn't it? With streaming services on the rise it was always going to happen that someone would go 'wait a minute, we have the film right now, ready to upload; why not just release right now and let viral marketing take over?' Cloverfield has kinda spun itself into a bit of a mystery-box franchise in its own right, so it feels tailor made for that kind of guerilla marketing tactic. It's sorta the series' 'thing'.

That said, the scuttlebutt is suggesting it ain't that great; certainly not on a par of the previous Cloverfield films - the bar set particularly high by 10 Cloverfield Lane

evad_lhorg

I watched the first 40 minutes or so on the bus this morning. Looking alright so far. Reviews aren't great but that doesn't bother me with alien/action type films.

pixelburp

evad_lhorg wrote: »

I watched the first 40 minutes or so on the bus this morning. Looking alright so far. Reviews aren't great but that doesn't bother me with alien/action type films.

Watching films in 2018 everyone

evad_lhorg

pixelburp wrote: »

Watching films in 2018 everyone

First time but I was very excited when watching the superbowl and I saw that. Had to see if it was dog ****e. So far so good.

seamus

Interesting. On IMDB this morning it was at 9.1 with a couple of hundred ratings. Obviously people who were interested enough to watch it as soon as it dropped. Now in the thousands, it's down to 6.9, which puts it in the "watchable, but not great" bracket.

Decuc500

Big budget sci fi spectacle...streaming on a hand held device near you.

Bacchus

pixelburp wrote: »

It was bound to happen really wasn't it? With streaming services on the rise it was always going to happen that someone would go 'wait a minute, we have the film right now, ready to upload; why not just release right now and let viral marketing take over?' Cloverfield has kinda spun itself into a bit of a mystery-box franchise in its own right, so it feels tailor made for that kind of guerilla marketing tactic. It's sorta the series' 'thing'.

That'd be my take on it too. Another traditional viral campaign could have been successful but there could also have been an element of fatigue over another viral campaign like that. So, what better way to instantly generate a whole lot of buzz than to release it on Sunday night out of the blue! The water cooler chat in the office on Monday morning will be up to 90. It's win-win. Whether or not it's any good, Netflix will get a bump from this chatter and so will the movie.

kerplun k

pixelburp wrote: »

Watching films in 2018 everyone

I'm super busy on Instagram atm, I Hadn't got time to watch the actual film so I read the plot on Wikipedia instead.

My Review
Strong performance from the cast, let down by the Predicable plot, The weakest film of the Cloverfield franchise. 6/10

A-Trak

Well I'd the day off so watched this instead of cleaning the oven.

It's not great, and I loved both Cloverfield an 10 Cloverfield Lane.
It's a mishmash of Sunshine and event horizon, both of which are superior films.

Even the "Twist," at the end was rubbish and just fan service.
I'd have been very disappointed if I'd have paid cash to see this in cinema.

Bacchus

A-Trak wrote: »

Well I'd the day off so watched this instead of cleaning the oven.

It's not great, and I loved both Cloverfield an 10 Cloverfield Lane.
It's a mishmash of Sunshine and event horizon, both of which are superior films.

Even the "Twist," at the end was rubbish and just fan service.
I'd have been very disappointed if I'd have paid cash to see this in cinema.

Don't blurt out there's a twist at the end like that. Now I'm gonna be watching it trying to see it coming.

kerplun k

Bacchus wrote: »

Don't blurt out there's a twist at the end like that. Now I'm gonna be watching it trying to see it coming.

Fan service.... I think that's a pretty big clue as to what Trak is alluding too. It sounds more like an Easter Egg than a twist TBF.

Bacchus

kerplun k wrote: »

Fan service.... I think that's a pretty big clue as to what Trak is alluding too. It sounds more like an Easter Egg than a twist TBF.

Don't want clues TBH. Or any sort of indication about twists or nods to the other Cloverfield movies that happens at the end of the movie. It isn't even out 24 hours, at least spoiler tag chat about the end of the movie.

pixelburp

Yeah, the film is a surprise to all of us, I think a little discretion by folks would be appreciated. The fact that there's a something at the end now is itself a spoiler. Let people discover for themselves, even those already familiar with the Cloverfield franchise

kerplun k

Bacchus wrote: »

Don't want clues TBH. Or any sort of indication about twists or nods to the other Cloverfield movies that happens at the end of the movie. It isn't even out 24 hours, at least spoiler tag chat about the end of the movie.

I can see your point, But just to be clear, I haven't seen this myself yet. I'm hoping to watch it tonight.

klose

It's a bit confusing now when/where all three films have taken place now. Grand Sci fi standalone, but as part of the franchise I feel a bit disappointed. Not a fan of Chris o dowd either, rolled my eyes more time.

ArthurG

Jaysus 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back. Utter rubbish.

Sad Professor

Derivative, tedious mess. Terrible script, amateurish direction. Hard to believe it was ever intended for anywhere but Netflix. It feels like a pilot for SyFy that wasn’t picked up. Do yourself a favour and watch Sunshine again.

RocketRaccoon

Watched it this morning and really enjoyed it.

Occono

Yeah, it's hard to believe they'd give it over to Netflix worldwide for any price if they thought it was great, I'm not surprised. It's hard to resist not trying it anyway, but I know to give up quick if it's not.

Netflix doesn't have a high reputation with me for some film pickups. Rebirth, TMHWIA, and some other stuff felt like films with good concepts and poor execution that makes sense as a cheap buy for Netflix that looks appealling in trailers and is affordable to acquire but aren't very good. They need to maintain some standards with their film acquisitions.

(They aren't all poor. Okja, IDFAHITWA, Jadotville, BONN and others are great. But I've watched an above average amount of Netflix Originals.)

crushproof

Put it in the background this evening. Considering it went straight to Netflix I wasn't expecting much despite the decent casting. The beginning caught my interest but faded after around half an hour, turned into an unoriginal bog standard sci fi. No idea how all three movies of the franchise intertwine now, I think it's pretty clear to me that apart from the you know what that they aren't linked at all. 
Missing a John Goodman character, that's for sure :)

kerplun k

Just finished it now. I was pleasantly surprised and found it very enjoyable, but then again this is exactly the type of movie I normally like, so I’m probably being a bit biased.

I have lots of questions, which I won’t go into right now. I’ll wait for the spoiler removal before freely discussing.

I think if you enjoyed the first two CloverVerse films, you’ll enjoy this one as well.

kerplun k

crushproof wrote: »

Put it in the background this evening. Considering it went straight to Netflix I wasn't expecting much despite the decent casting. The beginning caught my interest but faded after around half an hour, turned into an unoriginal bog standard sci fi. No idea how all three movies of the franchise intertwine now, I think it's pretty clear to me that apart from the you know what that they aren't linked at all. 
Missing a John Goodman character, that's for sure :)

To be fair, if you put any film on in the background, you are not giving it a fair chance. I think that’s a big problem with modern audiences. The attention span is non existent. I can’t go to the cinema anymore without someone playing on their phone during the film, this has also become more prevalent in theater, which I think is an absolute disgrace. I was at a play last week and I noticed this a good bit. As much as I like the Netflix approach, It definitely has it’s flaws, not only does it add to this kind of casual viewing behavior, it also deprives fans of that big screen collective experience. This film is something I would have liked to go the cinema to see with a bunch of friends and chat about it afterwards. I’d say it kills some directors at the thoughts of someone half watching their work in parts on their phone, during the commute to work

Agent Coulson

Chris O'Dowd making a great living being Chris O'Dowd in everything.

Occono

So yeah, that....well, it wasn't boring, but it definitely seems worse the more I think over it.

I think the reaction to Bright was hyperbolic but I think that response is fair for TCP. TCP has lots of nonsensical parts and poorly developed characters and is just bland and confused......but entertaining with modest expectations, it's not boring.

Bright isn't a great film but some reviews were far too hyperbolic about it being the worst movie of 2017 and such. It was a more focused movie than TCP, at the cost of some underexplored ideas left for sequels, and the fantasy racism metaphors were.....well, I can understand hating the movie purely for that if that's questionable to you. But I thought it was different from a lot of movies at the moment and it worked for me. Might be critical dissonance, or whatever the opposite of hype backlash is, affecting my perception though.

TCP doesn't explain lots of ****, forces in Cloverfield connections and, while it's entertaining, is also really like some random episode from halfway through a scifi TV show that makes no sense by itself.

kunst nugget

One if the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Absolute tripe.

SimonTemplar

I thought that was rubbish. I can't believe JJ Abrams signed off on that script. The attempts at humour were so forced and Chris O'Donnell's character felt so out of place.

The script really sounded like an unpolished first draft or one belonging to a syfy movie. It definitely felt like one of those movies except for a bigger budget and recognisable actors.

I think this will tarnish the Cloverfield name.

johnny_ultimate

An inspired extension of the Cloverfield mythos. A lovingly cinephilic piece of work, frequently homaging many greats of the sci-fi horror genre. Speculative fiction at its finest - truly addressing and probing the sort of issues mankind will have to deal with in the near future.

joking joking it’s basically worthless.

It’s simultaneously overdesigned and underrealised, which is a super weird mix. The writing, the editing, the direction - all a few steps short of perfunctory, with the script particularly loaded with a host of clunkers. Laughed out loud a couple of times when I wasn’t meant to, which in my experience is rarely a good sign. The surface stuff could have been cut entirely without any notable impact on the film. The main gimmick of the film seems to just be to have a couple of random physics’ quirks at random junctures - there’s no coherency, no internal logic, just lots and lots of random ol’ bull****.

What in the name of god film did Chris O’Dowd think he was in? I don’t blame him entirely, as I don’t think the filmmakers had much of a clue either, but holy hell the stream of

hand/arm jokes was beyond bizarre.

Looking for some great modern sci-fi? Go to Vimeo instead of Netflix and watch the two World of Tomorrow films instead. Cloverfield Paradox is, to put it bluntly, awful ****e.

In conclusion:

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ARM?!”

ps3lover

crushproof wrote: »

Put it in the background this evening. Considering it went straight to Netflix I wasn't expecting much despite the decent casting. The beginning caught my interest but faded after around half an hour, turned into an unoriginal bog standard sci fi. No idea how all three movies of the franchise intertwine now, I think it's pretty clear to me that apart from the you know what that they aren't linked at all. 
Missing a John Goodman character, that's for sure :)

Hard to take any review seriously that opens with “had it on in the background” as you pretty much openly admit you weren’t paying attention.

HandsomeBob

The film does have the feeling of abandon ship unfortunately.

The acting is easily the highlight particularly from Mbathe-Raw and Debicki (not sure what it is about this woman which makes her so fascinating to watch), but the story is a disappointment and the effects were like they were inspired by some crap sci fi tv show. I thought this film was supposed to tie things together somewhat but all we got was more obfuscation and genre cliche (which to be fair, the franchise had avoided before this). It worked with 10 Cloverfield Lane but people were never going to tolerate the same tacked on trick again.

It's funny as last year's Life would have worked perfectly more or less in this film's slot in the story. Too bad they didn't comandeer that script.

Ciaran_B

The bits with

the arm

were so bad - it felt like Chris had walked in off the set of Red Dwarf. I did like that his character was called Mundy though.

Was this always meant to be a Cloverfield film? It felt like they had made a regular space-horror then stuck a couple of scenes in to tie it into the Cloverfield Universe. Also, they're on the 'Cloverfield' space station but all the consoles etc are branded 'Helious'.

Sad Professor

No, the decision to make it a Cloverfield film came later. 10 Cloverfield Lane wasn’t originally intended to be a Cloverfield film either.

Tony EH

Cloverfield is such a troll franchise. Perfect for the 2010's.

There's nothing there. Just a random bunch of unrelated films thrown in a bin marked "Cloverfield", designed to fool audiences into trying to look for some sort of connection.

There was a chance to link the first two properly, but when '10 Cloverfield Lane' turned out to be an alien invasion and not a continuation of the Godzilla type monster movie, it lost something. I still like it, cos I love a bit of MEW and Goodman is good...man. But, that ending...

I'm curious about this thing and might give it a whirl. But, the reviews are terrible so far. Really seems like the producers were afraid to release a stinker to the cinema and somebody said "Hey, why don't we make it a Cloverfield film?"

El Duda

Slapping 'Cloverfield' into a film title is the new 'Directed by Alan Smithee'
For those that don't know, Alan Smithee is a pseudonym that was used when directors wanted their name pulled off of a project.

Hollywood have essentially found a way to milk money out of failed scripts.

hmmm

If they had dropped "Cloverfield" from the title, none of us would have been any the wiser it had anything to do with the brilliant original. Bad acting, boring script, terrible casting - it was one of those movies you see rated at 4/10 on SyFy.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Watched it last night, enjoyed it for what it was. Its an interesting way to tie different stories / styles of film around a central event. The purpose of the Shepherd craft is a bit odd though -

to generate power to avert a global power crisis - theres no allusions to any power shortages in either of the previously released films

kerplun k

El Duda wrote: »

Slapping 'Cloverfield' into a film title is the new 'Directed by Alan Smithee'
For those that don't know, Alan Smithee is a pseudonym that was used when directors wanted their name pulled off of a project.

Hollywood have essentially found a way to milk money out of failed scripts.

It's three films in 10 years. You can hardly accuse Paramount of just loosely slapping the Cloverfield name onto films that need a boost.

I don't know about anyone else, but I like what Cloververse has become. It's essentially the film version of Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Black Mirror, etc.

OKay, I admit TCP, was deeply flawed, and had some outrageous plot points

I'm looking at you sentient arm

but, overall, it was fun, and fits into the universe nicely.

Attaching the Cloverfield brand to a project promises a certain genre, style and mystery to a film. As Bob said, you could have slotted something like last years Life into this series and it would have worked perfectly. Long may it continue.

Drumpot

kerplun k wrote: »

It's three films in 10 years. You can hardly accuse Paramount of just loosely slapping the Cloverfield name onto films that need a boost.

I don't know about anyone else, but I like what Cloververse has become. It's essentially the film version of Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Black Mirror, etc.

OKay, I admit TCP, was deeply flawed, and had some outrageous plot points

I'm looking at you sentient arm

but, overall, it was fun, and fits into the universe nicely.

Attaching the Cloverfield brand to a project promises a certain genre, style and mystery to a film. As Bob said, you could have slotted something like last years Life into this series and it would have worked perfectly. Long may it continue.

Yeh I agree. That said I understand why people get upset because this and the previous cloverfield movies were nothing like the original.

pixelburp

I've read that there may be a fourth 'Cloverfield' movie on the way in the next few years: the franchise linking is mostly blog tattle for now, but it is confirmed that JJ Abrams is producing a Supernatural WW2 film currently called 'Overlord' that recently ramped up production.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

I've read that there may be a fourth 'Cloverfield' movie on the way in the next few years: the franchise linking is mostly blog tattle for now, but it is confirmed that JJ Abrams is producing a Supernatural WW2 film currently called 'Overlord' that recently ramped up production.

It's called Overlord and it's already been shot and edited. It's set on D-Day as a bunch of American soldiers go after a village occupied by Nazis and the weird things they have made. It' supposed to be out this October but if Netflix own it then it may be out much sooner.

TerrorFirmer

So that was pretty bad - yet another unrelated film that so transparently has 'Cloverfield' bolted on at the 11th hour. The first 30 minutes or so is pretty promising, but it goes nowhere interesting and actually becomes quite boring and cliche. I can't help but feel that it's very much like a poor man's 'Life', which was a mildly similar premise done a whole lot better, right down the suspiciously similar endings.

Major thumbs down from me, generic, boring sci-fi and the Cloverfield aspect isn't even worth mentioning.

Tigger

SimonTemplar wrote: »

I thought that was rubbish. I can't believe JJ Abrams signed off on that script. The attempts at humour were so forced and Chris O'Donnell's character felt so out of place.

The script really sounded like an unpolished first draft or one belonging to a syfy movie. It definitely felt like one of those movies except for a bigger budget and recognisable actors.

I think this will tarnish the Cloverfield name.

Who ?

Skerries

according to IMDB it cost 26 million to make but seemingly Netflix paid Paramount 50 million for it

Skerries

Skerries wrote: »

according to IMDB it cost 26 million to make but seemingly Netflix paid Paramount 50 million for it

That's not uncommon, plenty of films sell for considerably more than they cost to produce.

Sad Professor

Netflix seems to be overpaying for everything. See Bright where Smith and Ayer presumedly pocketed half the budget. The Disney juggernaut is bearing down on them followed by the networks, etc so they are desperate for content. Most of that content being dross doesn’t matter since they are confident they can connect it with an audience. It’s a different business model. Quality is relative. The key is to keep people clicking play. And can use algorithms to tailor the experience to ensure they do so.