The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

From Wikizilla, the kaiju encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Article.png
Image gallery for The Cloverfield Paradox
The Cloverfield Paradox soundtrack


Cloverfield Films
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Cloverfield Paradox
None
The Cloverfield Paradox
The Cloverfield Paradox poster
Directed by Julius Onah
Producer J.J. Abrams, Lindsey Weber
Written by Oren Uziel, Doug Jung
Music by Bear McCreary
Distributor Netflix
Rating TV-MA
Budget $45,000,000[1]
Running time 102 minutes
(1 hour, 42 minutes)
Aspect ratio 2.39:1
The future unleashed every thing
„ 

— Tagline

The Cloverfield Paradox is a 2018 science fiction film produced by Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot. The third entry in the Cloverfield anthology series, it became available to stream worldwide via Netflix on February 4, 2018, with the exception of China, where it will be distributed by Paramount. The Cloverfield Paradox is a conventionally-shot film like 10 Cloverfield Lane rather than a found footage film like the original Cloverfield, simultaneously showing events taking place on a space station and on the Earth. The film does loosely tie into the events of the previous films, demonstrating the existence of a multiverse and offering an explanation for how paranormal creatures such as the monster from Cloverfield and the aliens from 10 Cloverfield Lane entered the respective realities of those films.

Description

Orbiting above a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.

Staff

Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.

  • Directed by   Julius Onah
  • Written by   Oren Uziel, Doug Jung
  • Executive producing by   Bob Dohrmann, Tommy Harper
  • Produced by   J.J. Abrams, Lindsey Weber
  • Music by   Bear McCreary
  • Cinematography by   Dan Mindel
  • Edited by   Alan Baumgarten
  • Production design by   Doug J. Meerdink
  • Assistant directing by   Mark Anthony Little

Cast

Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.

  • Gugu Mbatha-Raw   as   Ava Hamilton
  • David Oyelowo   as   Kiel
  • Daniel Brühl   as   Ernst Schmidt
  • John Ortiz   as   Monk Acosta
  • Chris O'Dowd   as   Mundy
  • Aksel Hennie   as   Volkov
  • Zhang Ziyi   as   Tam
  • Elizabeth Debicki   as   Mina Jensen
  • Roger Davies   as   Michael
  • Clover Nee   as   Molly
  • Jordan Rivera   as   Ayana Age 7
  • Michael Stokes III   as   Isaac Age 7
  • Celeste Clark   as   Ayana Age 4
  • Nathan Oliver   as   Isaac Age 4
  • Donal Logue   as   Mark Stambler
  • Suzanne Cryer   as   Newscaster
  • Ken Olin   as   Radio Voice
  • Simon Pegg   as   Radio Voice
  • Greg Grunberg   as   Voice of Joe

Appearances

Monsters

Weapons, Vehicles and Races

  • Cloverfield Station
  • Shepard Particle Accelerator

Development

The Cloverfield Paradox began life as a Oren Uziel spec script titled God Particle. In this telling, the astronauts testing the particle accelerator were all Americans, unknowingly helping the military develop a weapon to end a war against the European Union. Following the Earth's disappearance, they allow a team of European astronauts onboard and one of their crew members turns up dead. Paramount announced the film on November 30, 2012, and planned to release it under its low-budget Insurge label, with J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot serving as the production studio and Julius Onah as the director.[2] The project was developed at the same time as 10 Cloverfield Lane, though 10 Cloverfield Lane finished filming before Paramount closed Insurge, leaving God Particle in limbo for almost a year.

Production

Principal photography on the film began in Los Angeles on June 10, 2016, and concluded in September.[3] Reshoots were later conducted to "clarify character beats and tie the film to the [Cloverfield] franchise’s universe."[4] No longer constrained by Insurge, the film's budget expanded to $45 million.

Marketing

Concerned about the box office prospects of The Cloverfield Paradox, Paramount sold nearly all of the rights to the film to Netflix for over $50 million in January 2018, with the exception of Chinese and home video distribution.[4] Netflix did not announce its acquisition until February 5, when it released a TV spot during Super Bowl LII and launched accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The film became available to stream immediately following the game.

Alternate Reality Game

On July 17, 2017, Paramount opened a Twitter account for a Slusho truck, Slusho being the name of the fictitious soft drink whose parent company Tagruato inadvertently awakened the monster in the backstory for Cloverfield. A physical truck appeared at San Diego Comic Con several days later, serving beverages to attendees.[5] By completing a small puzzle involving a Snapchat filter, attendees could sign up to receive a Slusho bobblehead.[6] @SLUSHOTRUCK wrote about stops in six American towns and cities from July 17 to August 6, although it was only spotted in San Diego. Each place was the location of, or near, a large power plant.

On January 18, 2018, the tenth anniversary of Cloverfield's theatrical debut, the tagruato.jp website featured in the alternate reality games for that film and 10 Cloverfield Lane was updated. Only the main page is accessible, displaying an error message amid heavy distortion of the original site. Beneath and behind the error message is a press release announcing Tagruato's pursuit of a "revolutionary new energy technology," which is projected to be ready by April 18, 2028. The next day, Reddit user jnutttzzz discovered that the URL 04-18-2028.com led to a garbled video of a person saying, "That is why I'm trying to warn you about the dangers of Tagruato is trying to do." On January 24, both sites updated, with tagruato.jp displaying a new article about Tagruato partnering with companies called Oslo One and Norway Renewable. Audio from 04-18-2028.com mentioned an author named Mark Stambler, presumably a relative of Howard Stambler from 10 Cloverfield Lane. The character created a Twitter account, @TheMarkStambler, to deny any involvement with the videos, claiming that they were "most likely a student-designed hoax."

Packages containing Slusho bobbleheads, which also included a certificate of authenticity and pamphlet on the Cloverfield Energy Initiative, began to arrive at the homes of signatories on January 27.[7] A third video on 04-18-2018.com, posted the same day, revealed that Mark Stambler was a professor, and his book was about the real intent behind Tagruato's Clean Energy Initiative. Stambler tweeted another denial that his face was in the videos, adding, "My students are clearly taking a lesson plan about temporal anomalies too far."

The 04-18-2028.com video from January 30 included the phrase "third floor, by the lamp," a detail which prompted Stambler to notify the New York City Police Department. Five minutes after his Tweet, @SLUSHOTRUCK announced an impending tour of the East Coast. From January 31 to February 2, it posted about visits to three locations in close proximity to nuclear power plants. Tagruato.jp updated with a warning that the company was executing a 20-year plan to "steal the rest of the world's energy," as well as a January 2007 article in Hebrew about a temporary closing of Highway 90 near the Dead Sea.

On February 1, Stambler began to message several users on Twitter, cautiously asking for help. The following day, he passed along two videos he received from an unknown source, showing Kiel's mission logs aboard Cloverfield Station after the appearance of Jensen, before deactivating his account. Following each video, he wrote, "They said something about getting someone else's attention on the 418 site within the next few days. And that whatever they were sending, would show me what I need to write. If any of that means anything to you, please let me know." 04-18-2028.com updated for the last time on February 4, the same day the film was released on Netflix, with Stambler displaying the cover of his book, The Cloverfield Paradox.

Gallery

Main article: The Cloverfield Paradox/Gallery.

Alternate Titles

  • God Particle (Working Title)

Reception

The Cloverfield Paradox has an 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 77 reviews.[8] The site's Critical Consensus reads, "Brilliant casting is overshadowed by a muddled mix of genres and storylines that scratch more heads than sci-fi itches in The Cloverfield Paradox."

Videos

Trailers

The Cloverfield Paradox TV spot
The Cloverfield Paradox trailer #1
The Cloverfield Paradox trailer #2

Clips

"The Eye"
"The Wall"

Alternate Reality Game

Unboxing of the Slusho bobblehead
First 04-18-2028.com clip
Second 04-18-2028.com clip
Third 04-18-2028.com clip
Fourth 04-18-2028.com clip
Fifth 04-18-2028.com clip
First video sent by @TheMarkStambler
Second video sent by @TheMarkStambler

Trivia

  • Aside from Clover himself, The Cloverfield Paradox contains numerous references to previous films in the series:
    • Audio from a Slusho radio ad briefly plays alongside the Bad Robot logo.
    • The word "Tagruato" appears on an electrical panel.
    • Suzanne Cryer, who portrays the newscaster interviewing Mark Stambler, also played Howard Stambler's doomed neighbor in 10 Cloverfield Lane.
    • Most of J.J. Abrams' projects incorporate the word "Kelvin" as a tribute to his late grandfather, Henry Kelvin. In The Cloverfield Paradox, as in Super 8 and 10 Cloverfield Lane, it appears as the name of a gas station. Later, it can be seen on a hatch aboard Cloverfield Station.
    • A Slusho bobblehead, nearly identical to the one given away as part of the film's alternate reality game, rattles during the first successful test of the Shepard Particle Accelerator.
    • One of the panicked messages Michael reads on his phone as Clover's species arrives on Earth reads, "Did the Martians finally figure out a way to get here?" Howard uses a nearly identical phrase in 10 Cloverfield Lane.

External Links

References

This is a list of references for The Cloverfield Paradox. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

Era Icon - Paramount.png
Era Icon - Netflix.png
Movie